T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril

by T. Lynn Ocean

  “When’s the big day?” I asked.

  Two days from now.”

  Perfect. That gave me time to have a chat with the Divine Image Group in advance of their free lunch. Further stir the pot. That’s me: Stir, stir, stir, and be ready to duck.

  Morgan finished the coffee and declined a refill. “You really should clean your brewer.”

  I agreed I would. He left to catch a matinee movie and, on his way out, passed Dirk coming in. I cleared Morgan’s coffee cup, and Dirk slid onto the just vacated bar stool.

  “Any good lunch specials today?” he asked. I had no idea. Fortunately, Ruby did.

  “Trout sandwich or fried trout bites. Comes with sweet-potato fries and cranberry slaw,” she said.

  Dirk said he’d take a sandwich. I asked Ruby to make it two. We moved to a table to eat, and Dirk filled me in on everything the department had on Garland’s alleged accidental death. Which wasn’t much. No police report. And an investigation hadn’t been implemented, since foul play was not an issue. Nothing on record at all, in fact, except a 911 call made from Argo’s main phone line. Dirk pulled out a pocket-size digital recorder and pressed a button.

  [Excited male voice.] Caller: A man just fell off a ladder and I think he’s really hurt.

  Operator: What is your location, sir?

  Caller: Argo’s restaurant on Bradley Creek. I don’t know the exact address.

  Operator: We have the address, sir. Is the victim still breathing?

  Caller: Yes, I think so. He was up there replacing floodlights, you know, the bulbs, I guess. And the ladder slipped and I saw him fall.

  Operator: An ambulance is on the way….

  And it went on from there.

  “Seems to me like the caller was intent on explaining what happened, even though the operator didn’t ask,” I said.

  Dirk agreed. “Other than the 911, there’s an M.E. report, signed death certificate, and newspaper obit.”

  I’d already seen all that, but the 911 call confirmed that Spud’s instincts had been on target. Not to mention an urn full of sand inside the prayer bench.

  Dirk asked about Lindsey and Ox, and I inquired about his family. He was going on duty soon, he said, and had to scoot. I took care of his tab. I’d just finished helping Ruby clear the table when Brad swaggered in.

  Hands on her wide hips, Ruby followed his progress like a buyer at a fashion show. “Why, I do declare!” she said, pouring on the southern accent. “You’ve got a regular string of hunky male callers today.”

  I made a face at her. “Good thing I’m not on the clock.”

  “Hah!” she blurted, going toward the kitchen. “You couldn’t find the employee time clock if it was framed in flashing neon.”

  “A string of hunky men, huh?” One corner of Brad’s mouth went up. “Does that mean she thinks I’m hot?”

  “What do you want, Brad?”

  He wanted to sit on the outside patio, he said, to take in the ideal weather. Mostly sunny and a steady breeze moving off the water. What he really came for, he added, was the information I’d promised him on CC’s Hair Boutique. Two days ago.

  “I’ve been busy.” We propped open a big canvas umbrella and secured the latch on its wood post before stretching out in chairs.

  Ruby followed us out. “Are you eating again?”

  I made a face at her. “Just a beer, please.”

  She looked at Brad. “Hungry?”

  “I’m always hungry, darlin’.”

  Ruby’s posture warmed up a good ten degrees when Brad turned his hazel greens on her. “How about you bring me whatever your lunch special is. And I’ll take a beer, too.”

  “You got it.” There was a little extra “shay” in her sashay as she headed inside. He could charm the bark off a tree. I did a mental eye roll.

  A smattering of birds chirped along the paver bricks, scavenging for dropped crumbs. The patio held a decent crowd, and the lunchgoers piled in. To be helpful, I fetched our beers, and when I returned, Brad’s head rested back, his face soaking up bright rays that fell beyond the umbrella’s circle of shade. If he didn’t irritate me so much, I might have found the pose alluring. Before I had too much more time to think about it, Ruby delivered Brad’s food.

  While he ate, I gave him the lowdown on what I’d learned at CC’s Hair Boutique: that a woman named Theresa had told the housewife Karen about the network. That’s how Karen came to be on the list I’d found at Argo’s—because she picked up her drugs there. Theresa left the salon one day with her boyfriend to eat lunch and they never saw her again, I explained to Brad.

  “Anything on the boyfriend?” he asked.

  I told him about Earless and the first time I’d encountered the tattooed thug at Argo’s. “A clock face with no hands on it,” I said. “A prison tattoo, I think. Anyway, he seemed to be searching for something, and he commented on how Rosemary could sell the rich bitch crowd. He knew about the drug dealing. Then he tried to lock us in the cooler and he ran off. That’s pretty much it.”

  Brad’s plate wasn’t empty, but he’d stopped eating. He glared at me through narrowed eyes. “You didn’t think to tell me about Earless before now?”

  “Not much to tell,” I said. “Besides, Morgan filed a police report. The gun I took away from Earless went through ballistics and came up empty. Cheap revolver, no serial number, probably stolen.”

  Brad picked up a sweet-potato fry, pointed it at me, started to say something, tossed the fry back on the plate. “Anything else you’ve been withholding from me?”

  “Not a thing,” I lied.

  A woman at a nearby table got Ruby’s attention and asked for a glass of Merlot to go with her hamburger.

  “Sorry, ma’am, we’re out of Merlot. The only red I have right now is house Zinfandel. I can whip you up a red wine cooler,” Ruby offered.

  The woman’s forehead crinkled up. “You only have one single type of red wine available?”

  I saw a notepad lying on the chair beside the customer’s purse, pen tucked into the spiral binding. She wore a casual outfit and slip-on leather flats. No wedding ring. Her companion looked like a college coed and might have been her daughter.

  “Normally, we have a right many wines to choose from,” Ruby said, eyeing me, “but somebody made a mistake and didn’t get the wine order in on time.”

  “No big deal,” the younger girl said. “Mom just likes a glass of wine when she’s work—I mean, uh, well, you know. Never mind.”

  The woman had to be a restaurant reviewer, probably one accustomed to more upscale places. Wilmington is loaded with great restaurants, foodies, and, of course, critics. Maybe she had let her daughter pick their lunch spot.

  “You advertise”—she consulted the menu—“five different red wines and six whites. Not an extensive selection by any means, but still, I’d think you’d at least have something besides Zinfandel.” She said the word as though the wine were tainted with dog poop.

  Ruby looked at me to see which way we wanted to go. Sometimes snooty customers just aren’t worth the trouble, and I don’t mind a bit if a server recommends they eat elsewhere. On the other hand, this woman reeked of column inches. I can ignore a stench and brownnose when necessary.

  I got up and introduced myself. “I have a bottle of Merlot upstairs. Very nice wine from a private collection. I’d be delighted to open it for you, and your glass of wine will be on the house.”

  Ruby bit her tongue and fake-smiled at the woman. “I’ll have that right out to you, ma’am.”

  I returned to our table and told Brad I’d be right back.

  “You’re a wine aficionado?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even like wine. Morgan insisted I take a few bottles from the wine cellar when I searched Garland’s place. I figured Spud and Fran would drink them.”

  “Want me to go up and get the Merlot for you?”

  “No.”

  “At least let me go with you.”

  “
You’re dying to see my place, aren’t you.”

  “Yes.”

  We cut through the Block and climbed the stairs, Cracker on our heels. I beeped us through the security system. “Don’t even think about planting any bugs in here,” I told him. “I swear, you go near a telephone or a lamp, you get a roundhouse kick to the back of the head. In fact, don’t touch anything. Don’t even breathe on anything.”

  “No problem,” Brad said. “I’d love to take a tour, though.”

  “Fine. Spin in a three sixty. Entryway, kitchen, living room, bedroom, bath. Through those French doors is another kitchen, which leads to my father’s apartment. Satisfied?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Great tour. Real homey feel to it.”

  I pointed at him. “Stay.”

  Both Brad and Cracker stood still, side by side, and watched me rummage in the liquor cabinet. I found the bottle of Merlot. I dug through a drawer and retrieved a corkscrew.

  “Want me to open that for you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Am I allowed to move now?”

  I waved him over. “And recork it, please, so I don’t spill any wine carrying it down to Ruby.”

  “Hey, I’ll personally deliver it to your surly customer.”

  “Ruby would get a kick out of that.” And a bigger tip, if Brad turned on his charm.

  The cork made a sucking pop as Brad pulled it out. “I never order expensive wine. Mind if I try a sip to see what I’m missing?”

  “Sure.” I found a wineglass. When he poured, an odd-colored liquid came out, something with the transparency of grape Kool-Aid. He smelled it and passed the glass beneath my nose. It smelled like stale water to me. Brad poured more until the liquid slowed to a dribble and stopped. He held up the dark green bottle to my ceiling light, but we couldn’t quite see through it. Whatever the bottle contained, it wasn’t wine. He wrapped a dish towel around the bottle and smashed it against the inside of my kitchen sink. We found three stuffed Baggies in the soggy mess.

  Cracker nosed his way up to the kitchen counter to beg.

  “I don’t think you want any of whatever this is,” I told the dog, and gave him a Greenies instead.

  Brad tore open one of the Baggies, to find another sealed bag inside. When he cut it open, crystalline, fine white powder poured out.

  He dipped in a fingertip and dabbed it on his gums. “Man, oh, man. We’ll have to test it, but I’m guessing this stuff is pharmaceutical-grade cocaine. I can’t feel my teeth.”

  “There’s a medical use for blow?” I didn’t know pharmaceutical-grade cocaine existed.

  “It’s an analgesic. Rarely used in the U.S. because there are other, better, safer substitutes. But some countries manufacture pure cocaine for medical use.”

  “I’m guessing these three Baggies are worth a bunch of Ben Franklins?”

  “Something this pure? Oh, yeah. You have more bottles of wine?”

  I found the other two, and Brad did the smash routine with them. One held nothing but wine—real white wine. Inside the last one, we found more Baggies of pure coke. We needed to get to Garland’s wine cellar.

  “I’ll drive,” Brad said. “Let’s go!”

  Forgetting about the waiting food critic, we hustled back downstairs, jogged through the Block, and jumped in Brad’s Murano. “I’ll bet that’s what your earless fellow is looking for. Rosemary was in deeper than we thought.” He peeled away from the curb at the first opening in traffic.

  “Or maybe,” I suggested, “she was storing the stuff for him. And then she died. And he’s been trying to figure out where she hid it ever since.”

  “That’s why we saw recorking equipment in the wine cellar,” Brad said. “Rosemary must have been hiding the stuff in wine bottles.”

  “Hiding it from who?”

  “Her husband, for starters,” Brad said. “And maybe this earless dude you had a run-in with.”

  I thought back to when Earless tried to lock me and Morgan in the cooler at Argo’s. He’d been there to look for something. And he’d seemed genuinely surprised that Morgan didn’t know anything about his mother’s second job as a dope dealer.

  Who was this guy?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Brad handled the SUV like a professional driver, and we made it to Garland’s estate in twenty minutes and got flipped off only once. Circling the estate, we saw no signs of activity. Brad found a box on the exterior of the home that housed cable and telephone wires and started to bust into it. I asked why.

  “They have a digital phone, which operates via the cable television system. If I cut the main coaxial cable feed and we trip the security system, it won’t be able to send out a distress call.”

  “I have the security system code.” After all, I was working for the family, even though I’d never see a paycheck. I’d gotten the code from Morgan.

  “Oh,” Brad said.

  He pulled out a small set of lock-pick tools and headed for a side door. I asked why he needed it.

  “Uh, to get us inside?”

  I held up a key. He stood back to let me have the lead. I let us in and deactivated the alarm.

  We did a walk-through. Everything appeared just as it had the last time I’d been inside the house: fashionably decorated, clean, undisturbed. We went to the wine cellar, which was really a converted room. It’s rare to find a home with a basement in Wilmington—the underground water table is simply too high, and the land is too flat. That, and the fact that most builders in the area wouldn’t have a clue as to how to build one.

  We went into the wine room through two wooden hand-carved doors. Each had a large half-moon pane of stained glass. I heard a faint electronic hum from the room’s climate control system. About the size of a large bedroom, the area was lined along each wall with crisscrosses of wooden wine racks. A tasting table in the center of the room held a fancy mounted corkscrew and, in cabinets below, a variety of wineglasses.

  Starting on opposite walls, we examined the wines, searching for the same label affixed to the bottle that we had opened at the Block. We found seven such bottles. They looked and felt like real wine, and we couldn’t tell if they were bogus or not.

  “Guess there’s nothing to do but open them,” Brad said.

  Arms loaded with the suspect bottles, we headed to the kitchen sink. The first bottle Brad busted open held only wine. Same for the second. Bottles three, four, and five contained Baggies of white powder. He pulled a phone from his pocket and made a call. Soon, Garland’s house would be swarming with agents. I didn’t like it, but I understood. After all, how could he waltz in and dump hundreds of thousands of dollars of illicit product in the evidence lockup without ever having a thorough search of the grounds?

  “You’re not planning to do the same for the Block, I hope.”

  Brad said no. “No reason to mention that the original bottles came from your place. I’ll spare you the hassle.”

  “My goodness,” I said. “You actually seem human sometimes.”

  We returned to the wine room for another, more thorough search, examining every bottle carefully.

  “It would be a shame,” Brad said, “but we may end up having to open up every bottle in here just to be sure. Too bad you don’t like wine.”

  “We could always gather up some friends for a wine-and-cheese shindig—”

  I heard a sound outside the double doors and, drawing my weapon, spun to see Earless standing in the wine room entryway with a gun of his own.

  “You!” His face showed a split second of recognition before he started firing. Brad and I dove for cover behind the tasting table, took blind aim for the double doors, and let loose. A firestorm echoed in the enclosed room as bottles exploded and wood splintered in every direction.

  “New mag,” Brad said, and stopped firing long enough to eject the magazine and shove in a full one. The instant I heard it click into place, I did the same with my gun, timing it so we wouldn’t both be dry at the same time. The incoming shots had sto
pped, and we stayed stock-still to listen for movement in the echoing silence. Earless had trapped us in a confined room with only one way out. It was a huge tactical disadvantage.

  “I’m going to take a look,” Brad whispered. “Now!”

  I peppered the doorway with bullets to cover him while Brad exposed his head enough to see out of the wine room. He dropped back down and squatted next to me. “Nothing.”

  Muzzles leading the way, we crept to opposite sides of the tasting table and surveyed what we could see. Without warning, a chunk of Sheetrock burst inward. Bottles exploded behind us and we scrambled back behind the tasting table.

  “He’s shooting through the wall!” Brad said. “Do you remember what’s on the other side of this room?”

  I visualized the layout. “Open area, pool table, card table. Like a game room.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I’ll second that.” We moved out of Garland’s wine cellar, me crouching low and Brad going high. Once out of the room, we stood back to back, guns quiet, moving in a slow circle to look for the shooter. Nothing.

  “I’ve only got two shots left,” I told Brad. “Maybe one.” Back as a SWEET agent, I would have known exactly how many rounds remained during any firing exercise, regardless of the handgun I used. Right now, that seemed like ages ago. And this wasn’t an exercise.

  Brad glanced at me. “You don’t carry a backup piece?”

  “I’m retired.”

  We continued through the house, went outside the same way we’d come in, through a side door, and headed to the long, shaded drive. I saw movement near the Murano.

  “Somebody’s by your car!”

  We got close enough to see Earless. He spotted us, took aim over the hood of the Murano, and started shooting.