Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1)

by GA VanDruff

  I dashed back to my out-of-state plunder, cupped my ears and listened hard. Sparrows were my only witnesses, chirping to each other about the fine weather.

  The barn fit the car like a glove. I slipped the key ring under the driver’s side floor mat and reset both wood doors exactly as I found them.

  Five minutes later, my knees pumped up and down at a furious pace, like an adult on a child’s bicycle because that’s exactly what this was. Twenty-six-year-old Jaqie pedaling like a wild woman on twelve-year-old Jaqie’s pink-and-chrome getaway bike.

  CHAPTER 18

  It didn’t matter in the least that I could not talk when I arrived at Dumford’s Marina. While Uncle Frank recited the speech he’d been crafting, I took the opportunity to glance around the immediate area for an oxygen canister. When that produced no results, I went to my Zen place to regulate my breathing and lower my blood pressure which was so high, I couldn’t hear most of Uncle Frank’s diatribe for the blood pounding in my ears.

  Ed had pried my cramped fingers off the handlebars after I bobbled into the parking lot, and moved the grotesque bicycle under the eaves near the marina’s front door. That eliminated any hope someone might steal the thing.

  “Now, you and this idiot,”—pronounced “idjit” in this circumstance—“take my truck and head to Bub’s and pick up six cans of WD-40.”

  I caught the keys in mid-toss and turned a three-sixty. Dumford’s Marina was the marina in a hundred-mile radius. The main building was the size of an airport hangar. Dozens of boats were cradled over the ten acres of prime waterfront that also offers fifteen docks for rent. Dell’s crane would make short work of stepping Ovation’s mast. Mumford’s had it all.

  “Uncle Frank, seriously. You’re telling me there’s not one can—”

  “Get.” Pronounced “git” in this circumstance.

  “Come on, Idjit.” Ed and I headed for the truck.

  If Ed, who never lifted a finger for the slight duration of our marriage, had let my bike alone, I could have easily backed right over it. Maybe next time.

  “Where have you been?” Ed almost slammed the door, but thought better of it with Uncle Frank still in pummeling distance. “Don’t ever let me alone with him again.”

  “Want to earn another thousand?”

  He buckled his seatbelt and cleared his throat. “Well—duh.”

  Underneath it all—way, way down—Ed is a good sort, in a fourteen-year-old-boy kind of way. Cute, fun to be with in short spates, but not reliable. To use Ed’s word—reliable? Duh. But you’ve got to work with what you’ve got, and what I “got” was Ed and a truck.

  “Listen up. I’m trying to find a yellow Lab.”

  Ed gave me the blank stare. “Jaqie. This is Oakley Beach. We have more yellow Labs than sand.”

  I started over. “A particular yellow Lab. Two very bad men are going to kill it, and I’ve got to find it before they do. I mean, they already have the dog, but they can’t get to him because ... their car is missing. I’m pretty sure. That’s what took me so long to get to Dell’s.”

  The silence from the passenger’s side of the truck was physically painful. Ed putting pieces together wasn’t easy to watch. I paddled the steering wheel with my thumbs as I drove and waited. Then, finally, thankfully, “You stole that car you called me about!” He threw his head back and it bounced forward off the head rest. “Jaqie Shanahan, goody two-shoes, took the keys and stole a car.” The hooting and knee slapping continued through two stop signs.

  “Anyway. I didn’t steal the car. I moved the car. Now, they have to stay in town another night.” I stopped at the third and last stop sign in Oakley Beach. “You’ve got to help me find that dog.”

  “Well, sure, Jaqs.” He cleared his throat again and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. “And you don’t have to go paying me a thousand dollars. You know I love Labs. Who doesn’t?”

  I waited for the thinking process to grind through again while I parked in front of Bub’s.

  “Hey,” Ed said, finally, “is this about that Cuthbart dog?”

  I nodded. “That’s why I want you to take the money, Ed. It’ll be kind of like the reward money Cuthbart would have paid if the hunt was for real. Which it isn’t. Besides, I’m keeping that dog, so you’ll be earning my reward money, instead.”

  Ed unbuckled the seatbelt and leaned forward until his forehead rested on the dash. “Mmm-hmm-um?”

  “What? Ed, sit up. You’re talking to the floor.”

  He sat up. “Jaqs, since Hollywood and everything ... I mean since your movie ... are you rich?”

  “Yes, Ed. I’m rich.” Sort of true. In Oakley Beach, if you didn’t live in your pap’s camper in the driveway, you were rich. In Hollywood, I was a two-on-a-scale-of-infinity rich, which meant I could afford the camper, but not the driveway. “So, are you in?”

  “What do these guys look like? Say,” Ed turned to me with an expression I’d never seen, “they didn’t try to hurt you?”

  “No, no. They don’t know I know. I’m invisible.”

  “Okay, then, but how will I recognize them?”

  “Abbott and Costello.”

  “Who?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What?”

  “Who’s on first?”

  “What? Jaqs, what are you talking about? They play baseball?”

  I held up my hand. “Never mind. Remember Mr. Nederlander?”

  “Ninth-grade science. He flunked me.”

  “Remember he was real thin and wore ...” I waited for him to create the picture in his mind.

  “Those jackets with stupid patches on the elbows!” He grinned like he’d won the car on The Price Is Right.

  “And Mrs. Maloney?”

  He stuck his finger under his nose. “Mustache.” Then he circled his arms in front of his own flat stomach. “Bigger than Dianne.”

  “Right, the second man is as big as Mrs. Maloney, but no mustache. Just a flushed face.” He snickered. “Red face, Ed. He has bright red cheeks.”

  The light dawned, and he rubbed his hands together. “Gotcha. What kind of car? Where did you hide it?”

  “Green. A rental. I won’t tell you where it is. That way Deputy Beatty can’t beat the location out of you.” The word there should’ve been “tricked,” but I didn’t want Ed to think Beatty could fool him into talking.

  “Rental? They might already have found it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only been missing for ...” I checked the clock across the street in the pharmacy window, “... two hours.”

  “They put trackers in them, now. Those GPS things. They can tell where you are. They can even tell how fast you’re going.”

  My mouth was hanging open because Ed reached across the bench seat and shut it for me. “That’s not fair! That’s an invasion of privacy. How’s somebody supposed to steal—move a car and hide it in an excellent place if the rental agency is spying on you with a satellite?”

  “Guess we’d better hurry up and find that dog.”

  ~~^~~

  There is a long list in a folder at my divorce attorney’s office of things that Ed does not do.

  Ed does not work.

  Ed does not stop dating after marriage.

  Ed does not avoid beer.

  Ed does not run.

  That last one is not really on the list, but it is true. He saunters through thunderstorms, strolls out of burning buildings, would perambulate from the base of an erupting volcano—if Oakley Beach had one.

  Ed running out of Bub’s with a bag full of WD-40s did not compute. But there it was.

  He yanked open the door and jumped in. “They were here.”

  “Who?”

  “Those baseball guys. Nederlander and Maloney.”

  “Abbot and Costello?”

  He nodded, out of breath from the running. “Skinny guy bought a shovel. Bub remembered them from yesterday. Said they were down here hunting, then bought a box of .38s. Nobody hunts w
ith a .38. Well, sure, rabbits or squirrels—but even that is weird.”

  “You’re positive it was our guys?”

  “Fat guy bought the bullets, yesterday. Today, ten minutes ago, Nederlander bought the shovel.”

  My phone rang. Gertie. “Jaqie, they bought a shovel. Bub called.”

  “I know. Ed and I are at Bub’s now. Oh, Gertie. It’s over. They’re gone.”

  A commiserating silence filled the space between us. “They did the strangest thing, though,” Gertie said. “I don’t know if it means anything, but as I headed out to the garage—I wanted to see if I could catch up to them, somehow, they came back. Drove past the house. I thought they’d forgotten something, but they didn’t stop. Made a U-turn, and drove off.”

  I sat and stared at my phone. I was too late. Poor Doofus. They’d go straight to where he was and finish the job. Why was there even a job to finish? Why did they have to shoot him? Tears stung my eyes.

  “Gertie, is it too late to follow them? Could you trail them?”

  “I tried. I saw them turn up Nichols, and I got the car out of the garage in record time, but they were out of sight. Al and I are sitting here in the church parking lot. We don’t even know where to start. I’m so sorry, baby girl.”

  Start. I mumbled a quick good-bye, and flipped to my photo album. I thumbed to the picture of the scrap of paper from Avery’s glove box. I turned the picture to Ed. “It’s a map. Where does it go? Can you tell?”

  “That’s a map? A picture of dots?”

  Dots.

  I grabbed Ed’s face with both hands and kissed him smack on the lips. “Genius, sheer genius.”

  CHAPTER 19

  King slept fitfully since the New Man drove away, listening hard for more Car sounds. It was lonely out here. He chewed the rope, off and on, but wasn’t making much progress.

  Another dog, like he’d never seen, trotted the perimeter of his area. King was wary of the outlander, and knew to show no fear. He planted his front feet on either side of the water dish, lowered his head and curled his lips. He growled low, from his chest.

  The strange dog didn’t carry much weight, but he was quick, with a tail that bushed out thicker than a full-grown rabbit. It snarled and darted in and out, judging the end of the big dog’s reach. It smelled the ghost of hamburgers and looped wide circles to investigate, but this dog had more grit than the usual house dogs it came across. For fun, it had carried off one or two, but this one ...

  In the end, the coyote made the wise decision to move on.

  King stood watch until the bushy tail disappeared completely among the spindled trunks of a young forest fighting to survive on a point of land on the far side of his cove. He drank only half of the remaining water. The rest might come in handy if another long day stretched in front of him.

  The New Man showed up before he needed another drink.

  “Can we keep him?” Jimmy poked the dog’s hind leg with his finger.

  The water dish was still half full. “I think he’s good. His tail works fine.” Dad untied the rope and scratched the dog’s neck. “Don’t go whacking on him. Likely sell him back home.”

  “Aw—”

  “No back talk. Get him in the truck.”

  King didn’t need to be told twice. He cleared the tailgate in one leap.

  The Man followed and tore open a bag wedged in the corner. He scooped a heap of kibble onto the bed floor. “Eat up. Want you lookin’ healthy.” He filled a plastic storage dish with bottled water. When he readjusted the bag, a jar rolled out of the corner and bumped across the floor grids while the dog ate.

  “What do you call this?”

  His three sons scrambled in the back with the dog. “My lizard, Pop,” Jimmy said. “I wanted to try it for bait.”

  “You mean that gecko you just had to have? I swear, Jimmy, you’re just like your mother. Has to have it. Can’t live without it. Now, it’s fish bait.” He wedged the jar next to the dog food bag. “Don’t ever be asking me for anything else. Hear? That means none of youns.”

  Three sets of shoulders shrugged. “Geesh, Dad, Billy and I didn’t do anything,” Ryan said.

  “End of story. Now, Billy, grab that blanket off the backseat and throw it here for ... hey, what are we callin’ him? Has to be sort of classy to fetch five hundred.”

  “Rex!” They said it together. When their Dad had run into the store to get the dog food, the boys agreed and shook on it.

  “Kinda classy.” He ran his hand along the dog’s flank. “Rex it is.”

  They’d been so busy with food and blankets and lizards, no one noticed the green sedan pull up behind them.

  Two men got out grinning in a way that didn’t say hail and well met.

  “That’d be our dog you got there in the back of your truck.”

  The man and his sons jumped down and lined up tall to short. “Can’t be your dog,” the man said. “He’s eating my food in the back of my truck.”

  The car’s passenger said, “That’s our rope you untied from around his neck to get our dog in your truck.” He put his hands on his wide hips. The move pulled his sweater back so they got a good look at the handgun wedged tight in his belt.

  “Rope is rope.”

  Dad walked to the back door of the cab. “Let me show you fellas something. Clear this right up.” He leaned in and stepped back with a rifle. He cradled it the way hunters do when they scout in the woods—barrel pointed to the ground. “We’re hunters. Rex here is our huntin’ dog. If you catch my meaning.”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” the driver said. “Just need our dog.” He stepped around the man. “You’ll see. Here, King. King.” He clapped his hands. The dog’s ears twitched but he was focused on dinner, not on the Men who’d tied him to a tree.

  “Sorry, fellas. Rex is eating. Good luck finding your dog.”

  “Our dog has a black mark on his ear,” said the beefy passenger. “Under that nail polish you see there,” as though a rational conversation would settle the matter, and this confrontation would not end like the OK Corral.

  “A black mark? I saw that dog—on a billboard up on the main drag. Neither one of you comes close to looking like that politician fellow—Cuthbart. Or are you thinking I stole this dog from Cuthbart because of that patch of nail polish you claim is covering up a mark? Or am I thinking you did, and maybe we should call the cops to straighten this out?”

  It was a bold move, but one that answered a whole lot of questions without a word spoken. The two men climbed into their car, and backed onto the blacktop road.

  “In the truck, boys.” He slammed the tailgate shut, sauntered to the driver’s door and stood, stroking the gun’s wooden stock. “Good eye, Jimmy, spotting that billboard.”

  ~~^~~

  King leaned against his bag of food and inhaled the passing scenery. Spring buds, sparkling snatches of green water just the other side of open fields, and high up, geese breaking formation, spiraling down to land in a cove he could not see.

  The bizarre creature beside him, inside the odd contraption, stared at him the whole time. King—now Rex—sniffed at the holes in the lid, but found nothing familiar about the critter’s scent. It certainly wasn’t edible.

  They rode together like that in the back of the truck.

  All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

  CHAPTER 20

  Finding Willie on a Wednesday was a cinch. He’d be perched on the swing at Aunt B’s where Gertie and I had last seen him on our way to Bo Peep’s. Thursday’s, Bub’s. Friday’s, Stevenson’s. Routine is what the doctors recommended, so everyone pitched in—especially since his brother became sheriff and wasn’t usually home.

  Aunt B banged through the screen door to the front porch when we pulled up at the house. “Thought sure it was Frank come home so he wouldn’t strangle that ex-husb—hi, Ed. This is a surprise.”

  “Hi, Aunt B.” To me, he said, “I’m staying right here. Make it quick.” He faced front
and stopped breathing.

  I grabbed my cell and hopped out of the truck. “Hold that thought.”

  “What’s the hullabaloo?” Aunt B threw the ever-present dish towel over her shoulder and glared at Ed.

  “Not a thing. No hulla. No baloo. Have one quick question for Willie.”

  “Busy with dots,” Willie said without looking up. “No time.” He sat with books of games strewn across the bench, piled on his lap, a mountain of them on the floor underneath the swing.

  “That’s fine, Willie.” I pulled up the picture of the paper from Avery’s car and enlarged the image on my phone’s screen. Now that I was here, I realized how ridiculous my idea really was, but Willie was Doofus’s last hope. “I have a brand new dot game to show you.”

  “Show it.” He clapped and looked up at me with a child’s eyes.

  Willie also had a child’s temperament. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Willie Nilly was a doll. But that one percent could accidentally kill you. Six-foot-two, two hundred pounds with a lit fuse sizzling in the back portion of his damaged brain. I approached with caution. If Willie didn’t like a dot game, or it was too difficult, he’d go berserk. In the fullest sense of the word. We’d have to call the sheriff home from his retreat, and that was the last thing I wanted to happen.

  I held the phone out like a piece of raw meat to a tiger. “So, Willie, whatcha—”

  He flubbered his lips, and his face fell. “Thought you said game.”

  “More like a treasure map. It starts here, but I can’t even guess where it ends. Can you?” I made no mention of Bo Peep’s as the starting point—that was still a guess on my part. Willie’s mind worked in mysterious ways, and I didn’t want to interfere with the process.

  Willie jerked his head over his left shoulder. “Start dot Beep’s.”

  “Bo Peep’s? Willie, are you sure? The Start dot is Bo Peep’s?”

  “Sure.”

  I slapped my forehead. I’d been right. Avery would be starting back to Doofus from the bed-and-breakfast. They’d begun the map from the place they had left him, and worked it backward as they made their way to Bo Peep’s. That explained the U-turn at Beep’s. They had to go back to the Start dot to be able follow the map to Doofus.