Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1)

by GA VanDruff

  “We’re going over a few ideas.”

  He snapped the towel and a blizzard of debris and hair follicles shot through the air. His eyes lit up. “You ought to write a movie about the Oakley Beach Butcher.” He squared a camera lens with his index fingers and thumbs and scanned the ceiling like it was the Strand marquee up in Merkleburg. “You could call it Cold Case, Hot Blood.”

  I toasted him with what was left of my cone. “Come back to Hollywood with me, Mr. Stevenson. I’ll put you to work.”

  “When do we leave?”

  Since I didn’t want to go back—ever—at least, not yet, I said, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Mrs. Stevenson would have something to say about that, and it wouldn’t be yes.” Still, his eyes shone at the very idea. “Let me give you a gallon of pecan swirl to take home to Aunt B and Frank. It was your mama’s favorite. Rest in peace.”

  The wall phone rang, and he held up a finger. “Give me a sec.” He answered but didn’t say much—just a lot of head bobbing while he fiddled with the twisted cord. “Will—will—will do. Um ah. Yup. She’s right here if— Uh huh. Will do.” He hung up and mopped his forehead.

  “Aunt B?”

  “Woman could talk the nails out of a board. Wants you to swing by Bub’s and send your Uncle Frank home. Y’all are eating at the Cracked Blue tonight ‘cept your uncle doesn’t know it. Bub’s got his phone off the hook, so I’m thinking they’re up to a good game of pinochle.”

  “Off the hook? Isn’t that bad for business?”

  Mr. Stevenson washed his hands and the scoop. “Not much to hunt this time of year. Geese is about it, for locals. And crow.” He curled balls of pecan swirl out of a five-gallon container and pressed them into a plastic tub. “Don’t know about you, but the missus can vouch, I’ve had my fill of eating crow.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The fat man rubbed his middle chin. “I’ve never seen anything like that. You?”

  “Nope. Me neither. Why would he do that?”

  “It’s a Lab. Labs are smart dogs.” The fat man, who went by Timmy, believing the name made him appear slimmer than he actually was, slid four or five inches along the fender closer to Avery, the designated driver. He spat a bit of chewed fingernail to the ground. “Dog don’t have nobody to play fetch, so he plays by himself.”

  The dog, who went by King and didn’t grasp the import of such a name, stopped and smiled at the men. They were welcome to join in. When they did not, he continued his game of solitaire and grabbed up the stick, swam out until he was several yards beyond the end of the dock and flung the stick as far as possible. On splashdown, he spun in the water and raced to shore. He shook a fair amount of the Chesapeake Bay onto the councilman’s March grass and gouged the winter dry lawn with his toenails, gaining purchase for the charge to the dock.

  His nails clipped against the boards as he ran to the end and—here’s his favorite part—threw himself off the pier as far as he could. The stick bobbed a foot farther away because of the wake and King nailed it every time.

  “Seems a shame to kill it,” Avery said.

  “I do hate to shoot a dog. I’m a hit man, not a hit dog. They could just take it to the pound.” He turned and looked the driver square in the eye. “Or set it loose alongside of the road. This is the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Everybody got a Lab in the back of their truck.”

  Avery, uncomfortable with the short distance between his narrow face and Timmy’s flushed cheeks, slid backward along the fender and gave himself some speaking room. “Cuthbart says to shoot it. That’s what we’re—you—are being paid to do. Half up-front. The other half after the news conference to announce the dog was hit by a car and had to be put down.”

  “Dog must be a real problem for these folks.”

  “Did you see that smile the dog gave us? That smile and the weird C marking on his ear is what got the councilman elected. Now that he won, no need for the dog.” He dusted his hands as a demonstration. “Won and done.” He smiled at his clever turn of phrase. Avery liked to think of himself as smarter than most. Definitely smarter than Timmy. “Now you know as much as me.”

  “So’s if it’s dead—accidentally dead, people will feel sorry for the councilman. They’d sure take their votes back if they knew King there was shot on purpose, and not road-kill.”

  “Let’s get him in the car before he gets too muddy.” It was a rental but Avery wasn’t paying extra for cleaning when he turned it back in at the Pittsburgh airport. Remember, we have to cover up that mark on his ear, too.” He clapped. “Here, King. C’mere like a good boy.”

  King’s second favorite thing was a car ride. He could wedge his whole head out the window and smell everything. He hesitated a moment to see if the kids from the house might be home and want to go along. But they didn’t come out.

  He’d see them at dinner.

  Timmy slipped a bottle of nail polish out of his front pocket. “Nude on the Beach.” He shook it and untwisted the lid. “Kinda pink, but it’s what they had. You hold him.”

  Avery buffed the dog’s ear with the sleeve of his favorite jacket, a green, corduroy number he kept sneaking out of the wife’s Burn This barrel by the garage. “Didn’t know he’d be soaking wet, or I’d have brought a towel.”

  A curtain at the main house was drawn aside, then hastily fell back into place. A tall, elegant shadow moved behind it.

  Timmy slathered a layer of polish over the C and stepped back. The dog sneezed but the corduroy sopped it right up. “That’ll do it.” He opened the back passenger door so the dog could jump in. “Her idea, prob’ly. The wife’s.” He tipped his head in the direction of the window.

  Avery settled behind the wheel. “It’s always the wife’s idea,” he said, mopping at his jacket with a tissue which made things worse. “Dog probably did his business in her flower beds, and she’d had enough.”

  “Women.” Timmy’s side of the car groaned, and sank lower to the ground as he shut his door.

  “Go figure.” Avery tapped the dashboard GPS panel and programmed in two coordinates. “The boss said this is a good spot. Shoot him. Bury him. Outta here.”

  Timmy looked around the estate grounds and down the half-mile drive to the main road, which was nothing more than a two-lane blacktop county job ‘til it reached town.

  “Glad Cuthbart knows where we need to go ’cause everything looks the same around here. Not like Pennsylvania, no how. Nothin’ here but flat and woods.”

  “And private gates.”

  “Money everywhere you look, for sure.”

  King shook once in the backseat. Mud and water and bits of grass peppered the interior.

  “That comes out of your share. I’m not paying to clean this car.” Avery congratulated himself on not bringing the wife’s Buick. She’d have a flying fit if she so much as found a nose print on one of the windows.

  Timmy patted the dog, who’d stuck his head over the front seat and laid his chin flat on the fat man’s cushy shoulder. “He’s a Lab. Labs shake.”

  Avery adjusted the rearview. The curtain was drawn back, again. He waggled his fingers as a farewell. “Happy now?” he said to the councilman’s wife. He imagined claw-tipped fingers snagging the fancy drapes.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. You all set?”

  Timmy patted himself down. Checked the glove box. Bent over as far as his belly and seat belt would allow, and slid his hand under the seat.

  “What?” Avery slowed the car to a stop at the security gate, and waited for someone inside the house to press the Open button. “What are you doing?” He’d only worked two jobs with Timmy and wasn’t that impressed, and the look on his partner’s face now wasn’t instilling confidence that this job was on its way to a satisfactory conclusion.

  The security gate swung open. “I can’t find my bullets. Guess I left ‘em back home.”

  Avery sat at the gate so long the fair-warning buzzers started keening. He punched the gas pedal and squealed pas
t the brick columns and lurched onto the main road before the gates nicked the paint on the stupid car. “Are you really a hit man? You’re not, are you?”

  “Shows what you know. I shot my own cousin. He owed a guy money.”

  “You killed your own cousin? You couldn’t lend him a couple of bucks?”

  Timmy’s neck flared red, matching his cheeks. “I shot him in the calf. Right here.” He grabbed the back of his leg. “In the meaty part. Bled like a stuck pig.”

  “Can you believe this guy? A hit man with no bullets.” Avery backed the car up and turned it around toward Oakley Beach, down the road five miles. In the exact opposite direction of where they needed to go. “Now we have to find a gun shop.”

  “I forgot bullets. So shoot me.”

  Avery clenched his jaw and swore an oath that this was the last gig he’d ever pull with this clown. “The extra gas comes out of your share.”

  Timmy scratched the dog between its brown eyes. “C’mon. Let’s get this mess over with. Put the back window down. Labs like that.”

  As the fresh air rolled in, King smiled and stuck his head the whole way out the window.

  He really liked these guys.

  CHAPTER 4

  I could afford a new bicycle, but a rusty, wire basket and a bell with a thumb switch will not be denied. Vintage chic. It used to have pink and white streamers flapping from the handle grips until I was twelve.

  Your first bra changes everything.

  “Don’t you just love this place?” I said to the cheery, striped paper bag, riding shotgun in the basket.

  Oakley Beach is a two-hour trip from Ocean City, set back far enough from Route 50 so that the reach-the-beach traffic didn’t cramp our Main Street, or side-swipe us with tourism. Or a whole lot of touristy dollars for renovation. If you came for a weekend getaway, Bo Peep’s Bed-and-Breakfast was the only show in town, decked out in Lilac Moderne and shades of violet not normally visible to the naked eye, and enough lavender potpourri to make those naked eyes bleed.

  Other than that, our tidy village has no bells. A couple of whistles, but not enough to get us a page in Fodor’s.

  Our uppity neighbor, Reed Shore, ten-miles farther south, has water view everything. Big wigs from DC travel over the Chesapeake Bay to crack crabs at Fisherman’s Catch and spend quality time at a donor’s waterfront estate. Reed Shore hosted the Queen—the one with the crown—and people I now know in LA, shot a movie there when I was waist-high and just old enough to imagine how neat it would be to work in the movies. Now that I’m five-foot-five, I’ve discovered that the dream job is not anything like I thought it would be.

  Which is why, after one disappeared friend and my first box office success, I came running home to Aunt B and my bike with the bell, to realign my ducks.

  ~~^~~

  Bub’s Bullets, Bows and Arrows needs new signage. What’s left of the paint clings to the barn wood planks in curls and bits like a puzzle with pieces missing. It has hung crooked over the entrance since 1996 when Tropical Storm Josephine blew through town on her way to Ocean City.

  ‘Need a ladder to set that straight,’ Bub’s been saying since 1996. Ladders appear to be at a premium in Oakley Beach to this day, but maybe in another twenty-odd, one might turn up.

  The gang huddled around the card table in the storefront window, but waved at me as I leaned my trusty bike against the building. I grabbed the blue-and-green striped Stevenson’s bag since there wasn’t one pocket of shade on Bub’s side of the street. The bells jingled but the Come In sign was missing. Bub had taped up a plain sheet of paper with the words Lab Puppies and a phone number printed in thick, black marker.

  “Hey, my girl.”

  I could never remember Uncle Frank calling me by any other name. I’d been his girl since he and Aunt B adopted me after the car wreck, so he could call me any ol’ thing he wanted.

  “Hey, back. Hi, guys. Hi, Bub. Phone off the hook?”

  They hung their heads and folded their cards like kids caught smoking behind the shed.

  “So not a social call,” Bub said. “B sent you.”

  “Where are these puppies? The sign says puppies. I want an armful of puppies.”

  Bus Gill thumbed his suspenders. “At home with their mama.”

  “Lenore? That’s great. I thought she was done having pups.”

  “This is the last. Had eight. Letting her keep one this time, but selling the rest. You’re welcome to one, though, Jaqie. They’ll be ready in two weeks. Got the three colors this time around, black, chocolate and yellow. Stop by the house for a visit. Mrs. Gill wants to hear about the doin’s in Hollywood, too. I warn you in advance, she’ll want to know all about Cary Grant.”

  “But he’s—”

  “Haven’t had the heart to tell her.”

  I shook the bag of ice cream. “Who’s up for pecan swirl?”

  Clark Morgan raised his hand. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Uncle Frank said, “Only thing he can eat on pinochle Tuesday, without his dentures.”

  “Is Millie still in charge of your teeth?” I said.

  Clark covered his mouth. “That wife of mine holds a grudge.”

  “Shouldn’t have kissed that girl behind the Ferris wheel.” Bub slapped him on the back of the head. “Millie says without his teeth, no girls will want to kiss him.”

  “Forty years. Forty years, it’s been. Like an elephant, she remembers.”

  “I’ll take that,” Bub said. “Pecan swirl for everyone.”

  That marked the end of the chain of custody for Aunt B’s swirl.

  While the boys argued rules of pinochle and girl-kissing over bowls of ice cream, I wandered around the conglomeration of Bub’s store. Lopsided shelves of WD-40 and flour and hubcaps and hand-warmers for the hunters who lived here in season.

  They’d gather around the wood stove with muddy boots propped on ancient, yellow Coke cases, and brag on what they got, or belly-ache about what they didn’t get.

  Bub’s is the male version of Tilde’s Cuts to Dye For next door. Gossip and neat things to buy. There was an actual fish bowl at Russell’s Sprouts if you wanted in on the pool about whether or not Bub and Tilde would ever go public with the least kept secret in town.

  “Look there,” Bub said. “Customers coming. I guess the phone-off-the-hook isn’t foolproof.” The door opened, the bells jangled. “My favorite sound,” he whispered and headed over to the cash register.

  We eyed Bub’s “actual customers” in case we needed to bring them over for a sit-down about the fine weather and some pecan swirl, but the two men were strangers—one noticeably thin, one noticeably not.

  I squeezed Uncle Frank’s shoulder. “Cracked Blue for dinner tonight. Aunt B says don’t be late getting home.” I tipped his hat up and kissed the top of his head. “And I really need to talk to you.”

  He swiveled in his chair. “Did they find your friend?”

  “No.” I hurried on before the boys piped up with their questions. I’d been weepy since I got out of bed this morning, and I didn’t want to leak all over their game. “About Ovation. I’m thinking of taking her for a spin.”

  Uncle Frank slapped the table, and the cards and the pot jumped six-inches in the air. The two men at the counter jumped, too. One not as high as the other. “That’s the ticket! Wind in her sails, a bone in her teeth. A day on the bay.”

  I left it at that. I’d wait until dinner at the restaurant, in public, with witnesses, to tell him that a day on the bay was just the beginning.

  CHAPTER 5

  My bench was totally in the sun. I leaned back, stretched out my winter-white legs, and closed my eyes, determined to think of something else—anything else—other than Jeep. Enjoy the sunshine, I told myself. Life goes on, Uncle Frank keeps telling me. I’d soak up the warmth of our early spring, and think about how a yellow Lab could give birth to brown and black and yellow babies.

  A hot plop of goo hit my knee.

  “Great.�
�� I opened one eye, expecting to find a glistening bird deposit. “Oh. Well, that’s not so bad, is it, fella?” Another yellow Lab sat on the walk in front of me, smiling. I guessed the slobber was his way of saying, Whatcha doin’?

  “No harm done.” I’d kept tissues stuffed in my pockets for a year, usually for an unexpected Jeep meltdown, but handy for dog slobber, too. “There. Good as new.” I scruffled the dog’s ears. His right one had a gob of nail polish smeared on it.

  “What’s this about?” I used the damp section of the tissue and buffed, but the polish was ladled on, welding the glued hairs together in a shiny, chip-resistant patch of pink.

  “So did your mistress invite you to a tea party?” I pictured a passel of little girls dressing him up in funny hats and boas. Painting his toe nails. “Did you use your best table manners? Or did you escape?”

  He licked my other knee and smiled.

  “So what’s your name? Max? Dexter? Mike?”

  His tail thumped at each suggestion.

  “You’d probably answer to Doofus, would be my bet.”

  Thump. Thump.

  Doofus wore a chain collar with one tag. No one in the vicinity seemed concerned about his whereabouts, so I flipped it and found he would be rabies free for three years. “Good to know. Where’s your family? They must be worried.”

  The dog waited for me to do something interesting and when I didn’t, he trotted off, selected a stick I might like and set it across my knees.

  “Great idea. We’ll play until your people spot you.” I dug out my phone. “Let’s take a picture in case you’re lost and we have to make you a page on Facebook. Smile.”

  Doofus smiled. Not by chance. On cue. On purpose. A wide, toothy smile, like a pro.

  “Nice. Now a profile with the nail polish.”

  Bam. Profile.

  “You’re a heartbreaker, you know that?”