Heartache Motel: Three Interconnected Mystery Novellas (Henery Press Mystery Novellas)

by Austin, Terri L.

  Well, at least not all in one night. And my nefarious activities were done at home, under the jurisdiction of my uncle, the sheriff.

  I needed Todd to share in my jitters. I also needed him to stop with the hum and strum.

  “How can you be so relaxed when we’re about to commit a number of illegal acts that might result in losing every penny attached to our names and getting thrown in an out-of-state pokey? Thereby ruining Christmas for not just Byron’s family, but ourselves as well.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  I knew Todd lived in the moment, but moments like these were the kind that gave ulcers. “I don’t trust these Memphis players. They look like they want to eat you.”

  “Aw, that’s cute.”

  “Not cute. Particularly Lucinda, who does want to eat you. Tell me what happened today besides losing at cards.”

  “We drove to Arkansas. Went to a gaming room at a track. The Colonel introduced me to a bunch of dudes. We played poker. I lost.”

  “How’d Lucinda do?”

  “She won a couple hands. And then she just kind of hung around. Brought me drinks and a sandwich.” He glanced at me with blue doe eyes I found suspiciously too doe-like. “And you said you were wrapped up with Priscilla in the back of a van? Now that sounds fun. I like how you’ll try risky moves like that.”

  I pulled my hands from under my butt to grab Todd’s arm. “Priscilla and I never checked out that realty office. I kept an eye on the road when we were in the taxi. We could slip over there before we head to the art shop. Hour round trip.”

  “That sounds like fun, baby. But we can’t be late for Graceland. The Colonel said so.” Todd’s strumming had turned to rapid-fire tapping.

  “I promise I will just grab the supplies we need and leave. Let’s scoot over to that real estate office and see if we can learn anything.”

  I had remembered the exit by the giant ribs sign that appeared just before the interstate off ramp. After that, it was a piece of cake. Follow the road until the pawn shops almost outnumbered the check-cashing shops and hang a left across from the dollar store. Todd’s eyes grew wider the further we traveled into the heart of the industrial jungle. Only one vehicle had parked in front of the strip mall holding the realty office. It was not the white van, for which I was thankful. I could not handle hearing Little Jimmy singing Christmas carols again. He was not a tenor and had no falsetto, no matter his aspirations.

  “You didn’t go inside?” asked Todd, parking before the office.

  “Didn’t get a chance,” I said. “Little Jimmy just dropped off Elvis and the elf.”

  We approached the glass door. “Venture Realty,” read Todd.

  He yanked on the door handle and finding it locked, we mashed our faces and shielded our eyes against the dirty glass to see inside. Venture Realty had seen better days. Possibly in 1975. The dingy, wood paneled office had maps tacked on the wall and a dying fern. Beside a metal folding chair, a TV tray held a massive glass ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. One metal desk had been plunked before a back door. An actual rotary phone sat on the desk next to an old metal safe with a combination dial that might have interested 1930’s gangsters but would be shunned by modern thieves.

  “I can see why they don’t need bars on their windows like the Cash-N-Carry.”

  Todd hooked an arm around my waist. “This reminds me of my grandma’s house.”

  “Can you see what’s on those maps? Looks like states.”

  We squinted at the dim room. I could feel the grime transferring to my nose.

  “Six of them,” said Todd. “Tennessee’s got the most pins.”

  “The others must be the surrounding states,” I said, recognizing Alabama. “Most of the pins are near the border of Tennessee.” I held my phone to the door and took a grime-filtered shot of the maps. “Let’s check out the rest of the block. Maybe someone in one of the other shops has information about Venture Realty. But first, smile pretty.”

  I held up my phone and on cue, Todd struck a pose before the Venture Realty door.

  “What was that for?” he asked.

  “Memories,” I said and forwarded the pictures to Uncle Will. Shoving the phone into my back pocket, I took Todd’s hand to amble down the sidewalk. The diner’s closed sign let me breathe a sigh of relief. There’s nothing more depressing than an unloved diner.

  At the warehouse office door, Todd peered into the high, single window, then jumped back.

  “What is it? Storage for body parts or something?”

  “No,” he tapped his fingers inside his cargo shorts pocket. “I just recognized the guy working the desk.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Fred’s buddy from the Green Room.”

  “Let me see.” Todd grasped my waist and hoisted me so I could peer into the tiny window. I remembered sketching the man’s likeness. “Set me down, hon’.”

  For a long moment, we stared at each other with Todd’s hands wrapped around my waist and mine on his shoulders. More of a convenient resting place than for a romantic interlude. I could tell Todd’s thoughts were similarly occupied as his hands were busy pounding the Bossa Nova Baby rhythm on my behind.

  “Now what’s Luther doing working at a storage warehouse in this part of town?” I said, wriggling under Todd’s tempo. “I thought he was a musician or something.”

  “You want to go and ask him?” asked Todd, stilling his hands.

  “Is he coming to the game tonight?”

  “Think so.”

  “In that case, maybe it’s best for him not to know that we know that he’s out here in East Bumcrack.”

  Todd nodded.

  “I don’t like this. Chet and Little Jimmy at the Green Room got all worked up about my sketches of players. Little Jimmy leaves Santa Elvis and his crazy elf at this Venture Realty, but nobody’s home. But now we find another poker player, Luther, conveniently working next to Venture Realty.”

  Todd’s attention had drifted from my monologue and into the parking lot.

  “Todd, are you with me? This seems real fishy. Can we trust these guys to not screw us over? What if we get busted and they turn us into the cops? How are you going to know who’s in your corner when you’re playing tonight?”

  His eyes snapped back to mine. “Baby, the only one I need in my corner is you.”

  I blew out a big breath, but gave him a hug for being sweet. Which, judging by the happy rhythm dancing across my butt, Todd appreciated.

  However, our corner was looking a little empty. Or a little too full of people I didn’t trust.

  The “art shop” turned out to be the Art Shop, a cement block garage providing custom car paint jobs, specializing in pinstriping, scrollwork, and assorted Grim Reapers. The Art Shop also had a windowless back room popular for poker regulars when it wasn’t used for a store room. The Art Shop proprietor, Jupiter, had one glass eye and one Cad Red eye from a constant exposure to paint fumes and energy drinks. Jupiter also blinked incessantly, a handy condition for poker according to Todd. For those playing against him, that tic was more irritant than a tell.

  “How am I going to use these supplies?” I said to Jupiter. We stood in the back room of the garage housing his desk and wire racks of urethane paint in a variety of colors. I picked up a can of primer and waved it at him. “Any guard or cop is going to see I should be airbrushing a Camero and not painting a wall.”

  Jupiter fixed his one eye on me. “I’ve got kit bottles for mixing. It’s all for show, ain’t it? You think they’re going to look that closely?”

  “Cops aren’t stupid.”

  “Got brushes, too. We use them for detail work. Even got your sketch work stuff. We’ve got to draw up the design on paper before we do it on the car.”

  Jupiter reached into his
desk drawer and pulled out a Strathmore palette pad and a box of Staedtler colored pencils. He tossed them at me.

  I caught them, hugging the supplies to my chest. My fingers itched to rub the paper and guess the weight, but I didn’t want to appear greedy. “I did lose an excellent drawing pad to the maniacs in the Green Room.”

  “Keep it.”

  Todd patted my head at my eager smile, and we followed Jupiter out of the office and into the auto bay. While Jupiter walked through the garage, stashing tarps and painter’s tape into a garbage bag, Todd and I traipsed toward a Chrysler 300 covered in craft paper and tape. A young guy in a t-shirt, ripped jeans, and skull cap squatted before the driver’s door. With a steady hand, he added shading to a trompe l’oeil Aliens’ head popping out of the car door.

  “Cool,” said Todd. “Just like that alien ripped out of that dude’s stomach in the movie. Except on a car.”

  Fascinated, I squatted next to the artist to check out his palette of premixed jars in various metallics. His steady hand gripped a dagger shaped brush with a bat shaped handle, thicker than I used. The flexible, slanted bristles held the thin line of paint as the artist rotated the brush under the alien’s chin.

  “Is that a sable brush?” I asked.

  He continued his steady progress outlining the alien’s bulbous head. “Squirrel.”

  “Squirrel hair brush with a round hand grip.” I jumped to my feet and turned to Jupiter, my new best friend. “Can I get some of those brushes?”

  “The Colonel said to set you up with whatever you need.” He motioned toward a rolling, metal tool cabinet. “You aren’t really going to be painting, though, right? Just for show?”

  “Sure,” I said, making my voice sound like I meant it. “Whatever the Colonel says.”

  I dug into the tool cabinet, opening drawers and running my hands over the smooth wood handles and soft, dark bristles. I didn’t plan to stand in a room all night pretending to paint. Any guard worth his tin badge would wonder what the hell I was doing and kick me out if they didn’t see any work up on the wall. But I had great skill in cleaning out brushes, so I wasn’t going to worry Jupiter with the details.

  Jupiter turned his eye to Todd. “Heard about the game. You’re trying to raise money for your cousin who lost his job?”

  “Yeah, going to give him the house cut. I don’t want to see his family suffer at Christmas.”

  “On your way to Vegas, too?”

  “I won a spot in an amateur tournament. The VIP pass to the Tropicana.”

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Sure,” said Todd. “It’s going to be fun.”

  I looked up from the tool cabinet, fumbling the clutch of brushes I held. Todd still stooped over the artist and his alien project. However, I stood in Jupiter’s nonexistent left periphery and caught his cyclopean examination of the dumb, blond poker bait named Todd.

  Jupiter’s calculating smile reminded me of my Grandpa’s. Just before he carved the turkey on Christmas day.

  TEN

  The Dark Tunnel Bluff

  Just before four, we snagged Priscilla from Suspicious Minds, then drove past the famous music gates of Graceland, something my Grandma Jo would never forgive me for not visiting. Luckily she had died some years back, but I imagined her taking a few rolls in her cherry casket. Todd took a tight right off of Elvis Presley Boulevard, following the Colonel’s directions to the construction site for the new visitor’s center. At the temporary gate, we were stopped by an aged gorilla in a blue security uniform with various tags clipped and hanging on his person.

  From the bench seat behind us, Priscilla muttered about legroom and mall cops. Before the guard approached, I turned around and fixed her with a lethal stare. “Now Priscilla, you keep still,” I said. “You’re in the back for a reason. Do you think that guard is going to mistake you for a painter?”

  “Lord, I hope not. That would be considered an epic wardrobe fail,” she smiled with her teeth. “I wouldn’t want to get confused with the likes of y’all.”

  “I’ll take the insult in exchange for your hushed mouth.”

  She gave me the locked lips sign, and Todd rolled down the window.

  The guard ambled forward, adjusted his cop shades, and leaned an arm on the truck window, filling the cab with peppermint fumes.

  “Y’all got your pass? You should have it sitting out on your dash.”

  I leaned over Todd, placing a hand over his to still any upcoming tapping. “I’m the artist for the new visitor’s center. There should be a work order in the office. Todd, what was the name?”

  Todd slid his hands from mine, pulled a wrinkled paper out of his pocket, and consulted it. “Lonnie Harbaugh. Call him. He wrote up the work order.”

  “I hadn’t heard about a painting job.” The guard pulled a mini candy cane from his pocket and unwrapped it slowly.

  “It’s a big project,” I said. “I’ve got a crew coming so we can get it done tonight. I’m kind of famous in Georgia for my ability to render a realistic drawing in a very short amount of time.”

  “You are?” said Priscilla. “Are you also famous for tooting your own horn?”

  “What happened to that key?” I muttered.

  Mister Gorilla Guard stuck the candy cane in the side of his mouth and took a long suck. “Well, now. I don’t know nothing about that either. Y’all just sit here for a minute and let me check on this so-called painting project. You know you can’t get to the rest of the exhibits from here.”

  “We aren’t interested in seeing the Graceland exhibits,” I said, dissuading any idea of us lying about an art project to get a free ride into Graceland at closing hours. Which we weren’t. We were lying about the art project for entirely different reasons.

  The candy cane disappeared into the guard’s minty cavern and reappeared on the other side of his mouth. “Why the hell not?”

  “Why the hell not what, sir?” I asked politely.

  “Why the hell aren’t you interested in the Graceland exhibits? This is the King’s home we’re talking about.”

  “Because we’re here to paint?” said Todd.

  The guard blasted us with a peppermint infused snort. “We’ll just see about that.”

  With a don’t-you-move rap on the door, he stepped back and snatched his walkie from the belt holster.

  While the Candy Cane Cop summoned Lonnie Harbaugh, I turned to Todd and Priscilla. “We better hope Byron’s guy comes through. This guard takes his job a little too seriously.”

  “There’s a lot of money riding on this game,” said Todd. “It’ll work.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” I mentally tallied my savings and checking accounts, which took no time with zero balances.

  “These are pros, girl,” said Priscilla. “They don’t play for matchsticks and milk duds.”

  I let my head fall against Todd’s brawny shoulder. “I will never understand why anyone would risk money on a game. If it wasn’t for Byron, I’d never support the host of misdemeanors we are about to commit, including illegal gambling.”

  “The risk is what makes it fun.” Todd nudged my head with his lips and circled my shoulders with his capable hands.

  “Well, ain’t that sweet,” said Priscilla. “You’ve buttered her up, Loverboy. Better take a risk and see what she’ll let you do. If we’re caught, they’re not going to let you share a cell. I can tell you that.”

  “You mean kiss Cherry?” said Todd.

  “You should thank the Lord for making you pretty instead of smart. Did you want to kiss me instead?” said Priscilla. “Don’t mind me. I’m gonna close my eyes, think about my job tonight, and ignore whatever’s going on in the front seat.”

  To save Todd embarrassment, I allowed him a few minutes of risky behavior before the
guard waved us through the gate. From my window, I watched another uniformed man take Candy Cane’s spot at the entrance.

  The new guard tapped his nose as we drove past, while Candy Cane gave our license plate a meaningful glance before strolling toward the construction office trailer.

  Byron and the Colonel met us at the service entrance of the new visitor’s center, a storage room piled with boxes, lumber, and other building supplies. Priscilla scanned the crammed room with raised eyebrows and lips curled in doubt.

  “I sure hope this game is worth me canceling my Saturday night plans,” she said, fanning herself. “It looks like the Home Dee-pot exploded in here. And anyone who knows Priscilla knows the only thing she likes about the Home Dee-pot is the big drills.”

  “Put a sock in it, Priscilla,” said the Colonel. He pointed his cigar toward the open doorway in the back of the room. “Lonnie’s got us set up in a conference room. We’ll grab the rest of your supplies in a minute.”

  The heavy service doors shut behind us, cutting off the weak afternoon sunlight. With our arms full of Jupiter’s painting supplies, Todd and I followed the Colonel down the dark hallway lined with taped drywall. Wires hung from the openings in the ceiling and spackle dotted the cement floor.

  “We’re going to keep the front of the building locked off and feed everyone through the back door. Anyone nosing around will think the newcomers are here to paint,” explained the Colonel. “Lonnie’s got us set up all right.”

  “The guard seemed suspicious,” I said. “I’m kind of nervous about this.”

  “That guy’s an old timer,” said Byron. “Lonnie says he goes off duty at five. Won’t be a problem.”

  “Can’t back out now,” said the Colonel. “We’ve got plenty coming.”

  “What if the hustlers don’t show?”

  The Colonel shrugged. “Then your Todd here plays charity poker as planned. Plus Byron’ll get the house cut, after we deduct expenses. You better pray Todd can win more than his buy-in and house fee. Since he seems to have blown his wad losing at the tables in Arkansas.”