Trouble Afoot (Shepard & Kelly Mysteries Book 2)

by Benjamin Bradley

  Russo stepped into the hallway. Zoe and Mathias soon followed. The look on her face evaporated when she saw their faces.

  “Sound like somebody you know?” Russo asked.

  Zoe nodded. “We need to get to the park. Now.”

  Russo was already moving towards the parking lot. “Follow me. Hope you’ve got a lead foot because they don’t call me Earnhardt around here for nothing.” She shifted into a jog and busted through the rear doors of the station.

  Mathias was already out in front of them and hopping into his truck. Zoe jumped in as he turned over the engine. It roared to life. Zoe fumbled for the radio and then paused, staring at her co-pilot. Mathias nodded. “Smart move,” he said. “No radio. Call Delaney and Casper directly. Tell them we’re on the way.”

  Russo pulled out in front of them and shouted from her open window. “No sirens. Can’t spook anybody. Let’s go!”

  Mathias floored it and followed Russo’s cruiser as it peeled out of the lot in a cloud of smoke. The smell of burnt rubber stung Zoe’s nostrils as it crept through the air system of the old truck. She let out a cough as she waited for her call to go through. Delaney’s phone went straight to voicemail, so Zoe tried Casper. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Casper! Get Delaney and meet us at the Visitor’s Center. Don’t let any of the staff leave.”

  “What’s going on? What—”

  “Don’t answer questions and just hang tight. Mathias and I will be there in ten minutes. With back up.”

  “Better make that five!” Mathias said with a grin as he pressed the gas pedal to the floorboard. The old truck roared to life, and the doors shook.

  “Casper?” Zoe said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t let any of the staff leave.”

  Zoe hung up and watched Mathias shadow Russo’s methodical movements through the traffic on Route 70. They passed the Crabtree Valley Mall and then a half-mile stretch of furniture stores and car dealerships. Cars shifted lanes to avoid the oncoming speed demons and often rubbernecked at the passing blurs to piece together what had just happened. But even Zoe struggled to comprehend the pieces that sat before her. When they all added up, there was little else to feel but betrayal.

  “Did you ever suspect her?” Zoe asked.

  Mathias stared out into the traffic, and after a long pause, shook his head. “No.”

  “Me either.”

  “But something like this? Whatever this is? I wouldn’t suspect anybody. I thought… well, never mind all that. Let’s just hope this ends quietly.”

  Zoe fixed her eyes on the road in front of her. Russo dodged traffic like it was a video game and she was impervious to injury. Zoe admired the confidence the detective had behind the wheel. Wonder if Laney can drive like this. Maybe it’s part of the detective’s exam.

  The turnoff into the main entrance of the park appeared to their left, across oncoming traffic. Russo didn’t hesitate. She gunned it past the speeding cars that jammed on their brakes to avoid a collision. Drivers lowered their windows and let out a fury of curse words. Mathias crept past after the cars came to a stop. Zoe waved a half-hearted apology. As they passed the sign that welcomed them to Umstead State Park, the road turned to gravel and trees swallowed them on both sides.

  Russo swerved into the dirt around the first speed bump and pulled over before the second. She rolled down her window and waved towards Mathias. “You got some bootlegger genes in you, Wittles. Nice moving. Now, it’s your turn to take the lead, folks.”

  Zoe nodded and Mathias floored it towards the Visitor’s Center. She held her breath and waited to see the cars in the parking lot. As she counted each of them, she exhaled.

  Zoe turned and pointed towards one car off to the side. “She’s still here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Casper and Delaney stood next to her car, which blocked the outlet of the small staff parking lot that shot off of the public lot. The park grounds were quiet and empty, except for a few stragglers who were off on trails and ignorant to the surrounding events. Faces appeared in the office windows. Casper squinted to see who was inside, but to no avail.

  Hoagie jumped to Delaney’s side and she fed him a treat.

  “She didn’t say who it was?” Delaney asked.

  “Nope. Maybe she was trying to keep things calm here until they can arrive. She said she’d be here in—”

  The sound of approaching trucks interrupted their conservation, and they both turned towards the road. Mathias’ white Ford F150 barreled down the drive with an unmarked police cruiser close behind. Casper glanced back toward the office and saw that the staff had trickled out of the Visitor’s Center and joined them in the parking lot.

  Clem stepped out first. Hands on his hips and a smile on his face. Oblivious to the current events and seriousness of the moment. He picked at his teeth with a toothpick and watched Mathias park the truck sideways in a spot and hop out. Zoe followed with a stone-faced expression that Casper thought resembled regret.

  Ernest followed moments later, out of uniform but still wearing his duty belt and his forest green work pants. He glared at Casper and Delaney but hung in the background to watch everything unfold. Despite being left in limbo after his involvement in the case was revealed, Ernest had insisted on lending a hand in the office while Zoe and Mathias stepped away. An obvious last-ditch effort to save face.

  Joanne arrived last. Her bright red hair bobbed in the air with each step that she took. A wide-eyed smile was plastered across her face like she’d just gotten a raise. Her smile dissolved as she saw Detective Russo step out of the car behind Zoe and Mathias. Panic appeared in her eyes as they darted back and forth between Russo and Mathias. As if realizing she was visible to her co-workers, she then altered her face to reapply her smile.

  “What’s this all about, y’all?” Clem asked.

  “We just need a minute of everybody’s time,” Mathias insisted.

  “Did you figure out who is dragging my name through the mud?” Ernest shouted.

  “There wasn’t much left to drag, Ernest!” Clem bellowed and keeled over in laughter.

  Zoe nodded towards Detective Russo who stepped toward the group. “We have some updated information about the case that we’d like to discuss with each of you if you have a moment.”

  Clem nodded. “Take as much as you need. Everything okay?”

  “Not exactly, but we’d like to handle these conversations individually.”

  “Oh gosh, what did you all find out? Did you find the wicked man that did this?” Joanne said in her cartoonish voice.

  “Man may not be the correct word,” Zoe said and glared at her.

  “Ah, goddammit, are you all here trying to pin this on Bigfoot again? Maybe this time it was aliens? Maybe the Loch Ness monster came over from Scotland to screw with the park,” Clem shouted. Hoagie growled at him and he stepped back.

  “Clem, enough. This isn’t a laughing matter,” Mathias said. “We’ll all be cooperating with Detective Russo to get this case wrapped up.”

  As Zoe moved forward toward her coworkers, Casper watched Joanne take a half-step backward. He nodded towards her, but Zoe missed the sign. Delaney inched closer to him, gripping Hoagie’s leash tight. Her eyes remained fixed on Zoe and Mathias, still trying to piece together the situation at hand.

  “Let’s just take this one step at a time, okay? We’ll speak with each of you individually,” Zoe said. “Joanne, maybe we start with you?”

  Joanne blushed. “Me? No, I think you’d want to start with somebody important. Maybe Clem here?” As she spoke, she stepped towards Clem and put a playful hand on his shoulder. He laughed and leaned into her.

  “Always a kiss-ass, Joanne. But I don’t mind hearing it. It’s just dill on my pickle,” Clem said, beaming.

  “No, I just think you’re the easiest to manipulate,” Joanne spoke with a deeper tone that was unfamiliar to the crowd. Something wiped away and replaced her playful demeanor with a
new swagger. As she leaned into Clem, she reached around his side, unbuckled the clip, and grabbed his pistol out of his holster.

  Casper pulled Delaney back. Zoe drew her weapon and held it out with a steady arm pointed at Joanne. “Don’t do this, Joanne.”

  Joanne surveyed the crowd. She had three guns pointed in her direction. She made a cautious step to her right. Then another. Casper froze, torn between protecting Delaney, Hoagie, and the others. Joanne stepped closer to him. Then, in one swift movement, she grabbed Casper with one hand and pointed the gun at his head with the other. Then she whispered. “Sorry, but you’re one of the few without a gun.”

  Delaney cried out but was drowned out by Hoagie’s barking. Casper stared into Joanne’s eyes but only saw fear. The muffled footsteps of the surrounding park rangers drew Joanne’s attention. She pushed the gun into Casper’s temple. “Nobody moves another muscle. I don’t want to do this, but if you leave me no choice…”

  Raindrops plopped down from the sky, one after another. The ominous clouds overhead signaled an oncoming break in the humidity. The air smelled of rain on concrete. He took in the smell as the pistol jammed against his head.

  A hiker emerged from the stretch of trail behind the Visitor’s Center and drew everybody’s attention. As he struggled to comprehend the standoff in the parking lot, he froze. The rangers turned to pass on instructions to the lost soul, and Joanne seized the moment. She kicked Casper in the leg and yelled. “MOVE!”

  With Clem’s gun pointed back at the others, Joanne shuffled with Casper into the woods and onto the trail. Within moments, the forest had swallowed them whole and none of Casper’s rescuers were in sight. His heart rate tripled, then quadrupled. His feet grew clumsy as he tripped over rocks and roots in the trail. He braced himself from the ground with his hands and Joanne kicked at him again. “FASTER!”

  Casper wished he’d remembered the trail map enough to know where they were heading. To understand what Joanne’s escape plan was, if there even was one. She pushed him up the incline between glances back at the trail behind them. He tried to form words to talk his way towards freedom, but Joanne refused to hear anything besides the sound of hurried steps up the hill and out of harm’s way.

  At the crest of the hill, Joanne stopped and surveyed her surroundings. Loblolly pines crowded the surrounding land on both sides of the trail. An overgrown laurel obstructed their view to the west. Casper gasped for air. His lungs screamed from the short adrenaline-fueled sprint up the hill. Joanne’s head shot back and forth between both sides of the trail, unable to decide which way held freedom and which way held certain punishment or death.

  As the seconds ticked by, Casper took in his surroundings. Branches swayed in the strong winds and signaled an oncoming storm. Birds took refuge. Squirrels hopped away and out of sight. The frantic sound of the approaching team grew louder and louder. Joanne remained frozen. A raindrop fell on the tip of Casper’s nose. He looked up toward the sky. Well, at least this is a beautiful place to die.

  Chapter Forty

  The humidity turned, and the sky broke into a downpour. Delaney couldn’t see her feet as they pushed through wet leaves and debris as she climbed over the back of the hill. She tied Hoagie’s leash around a tree and apologized before rushing towards the others. Zoe and Mathias flanked from the front side, while Ernest and Clem came from the left. They had Joanne surrounded. Delaney pushed out the dark thoughts of what could happen to Casper. She willed him to survive.

  At the crest of the hill, Delaney slowed to a strafe. Careful steps. One by one. In the distance, Joanne’s red hair flashed like an ember in a forest fire. Through the woods, Clem appeared towards the far side. Ernest was on his heels. Delaney stood still until the booming voice of her cousin echoed through the surrounding pines, accompanied only by the distant barks of Hoagie.

  “Joanne, you’re surrounded. Put down the weapon.”

  “No thank you, ma’am,” Joanne said and then cackled. “Even in my darkest moments, I can’t go out with bad manners.”

  “Nobody is going anywhere. Just put down the—”

  “Don’t make me say it again. I’m not putting this down. Somebody is leaving these woods in a body bag. Come hell or high water.”

  “Joanne, if you kill Casper, the only place you’re going is straight to hell or prison. Neither option sounds great, does it?”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Joanne screamed.

  “Just quit the bullshit already!” Ernest shouted from his position.

  “You misogynist pig. You should be the first to go!”

  Joanne turned the gun towards Ernest and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Her face turned pale as she looked at the sleek metal pistol, dumbfounded. Casper threw back an elbow into her stomach and dove off to his right. Joanne stood and waved the gun around at the rangers as they approached. Everybody froze.

  “Stay back. I will fire this thing at each of you without a moment of hesitation. I just didn’t have a second to check the safety before. I’m still new to this life of crime, after all.”

  “Joanne, talk to us,” Zoe pleaded. “We can help you. We—”

  “Talk to you? No, it’s too late for that. I’ve gone too far down this rabbit hole. It started small. I just found an opportunity, and I took it. Everything was going smoothly. Handoffs in the parking lot. The deals were small. Nobody was getting hurt.”

  Joanne wiped raindrops from her brow. “Then you expert detectives caught on. Suspicion mounted. I heard you all back there discussing how you wanted to bring in drug dogs and make this place like a goddamned border crossing. So, I had to think fast. Luckily, Gil wouldn’t shut up about his podcast.”

  “I don’t see how Gil—”

  “No, you wouldn’t see. You’re just a bunch of Yogi Bears out here trying to protect the trees while I would have been a true law enforcement officer making sure that nothing criminal happened in Umstead. But nobody would give me the goddamned chance.”

  “Joanne, if this is about your application, we can—”

  She waved the pistol at Mathias. “No! We can’t do anything about that now.”

  Mathias gritted his teeth. “Then what do you want, Joanne?”

  “Your respect would be a great start. I had you all outsmarted for so long. You always underestimated me, but I am cunning. I am sly. Sly like a fox.”

  “Look, nobody needs to get hurt—” Casper said.

  “Hurt? No, that wasn’t part of the plan. I helped set up the charade with the Bigfoot costume because I knew you idiots would give it all of your attention.”

  “But drugs, Joanne?” Zoe asked. “I thought better of you.”

  “It all fell into place too nicely. Ernest was an easy mark.”

  Ernest braced both of his hands on his gun and glared at her.

  “Ernest was drooling at the mouth when he saw the opportunity to earn a little extra cash to retire with. Little did he know that he was just a patsy. A cog in the machine that we’d built. The empire. And he almost took the fall for it too. But you, Zoe. You had to keep pushing.”

  “No, I did my job. And your operation fell apart at the seams the second that you laid hands on Wade Buchanon.”

  Casper’s arms were dotted with goosebumps. Joanne laughed. “Wrong place, wrong time. That poor man had no clue what hit him. I regret that somebody got hurt on account of what I was doing. That was never part of the plan.”

  “But you didn’t realize that you got caught. Somebody saw you.”

  “People think they see things all the time. Like all those hikers who came in and said they saw Bigfoot. Did you believe them like you’re believing your eyewitness? No. I doubt that. You hear what you want to hear. Believe things when they fit your narrative. But maybe there’s a bigger narrative.”

  “Joanne. You were wrong. And what you’re doing right now is wrong too. Nobody here did anything to harm you. Nobody here meant you any ill will. You were my favorite coworker. I looked forward to eac
h time we had together. I can’t believe—”

  “I’m sorry, Zoe. But forgive me. You’re about to see a whole lot of desk duty.”

  Joanne pulled the gun and shook it at the surrounding staff. “I did what I had to. Now I’ll have to live with the fallout.” She stopped speaking and broke into an unhinged fit of laughter. She raised the pistol in front of her. Casper braced himself for impact.

  Then, a gunshot rang out through the forest.

  The sound boomed and echoed through the trees. Joanne fell onto her back. She wailed in agony and grabbed at her knee.

  Smoke trailed out of Zoe’s gun as she stood stock-still. Mathias dashed towards Joanne. She fought him at first, but gave in. The pain overtook her. He put pressure on her wound while Zoe secured handcuffs around Joanne’s wrists. The rangers propped her up like an injured hiker and escorted her down the trail towards the Visitor’s Center. A trail of blood meandered down the pathway as Casper, Delaney and the others followed.

  Zoe glanced back at the crimson staining the soil of the trail. The rain washed it away. By morning tomorrow, there would be no sign of blood on any trail. No evidence of the mayhem that brought the entire park staff into the woods. No reason to fear the forest any longer.

  Zoe paused for a moment alone in the woods. The case had almost taken everything from her. It drove a wedge between her and Gil. It put Delaney and Casper in harm’s way. It layered on a film of grime that Umstead might never wear off, no matter the time or reasoning behind everything.

  Delaney stepped up the hill and joined Zoe. “Hell of a shot, Zo.”

  Zoe grinned. “Remember that Christmas our families spent at the lodge in Virginia? I was maybe ten. Our parents were sick of us, jammed inside because the rain didn’t let up. Then Christmas morning came.”

  “The slingshots.”

  “The slingshots. We laid on that porch in our best sniper stance and shot everything in the distance. Nothing was off-limits.”

  “If I recall correctly, you were the one that hit the light bulb to the streetlight.”