Checkered Past (A Laurel London Mystery Book 2)

by Kappes, Tonya

  “Do something!” Sheila screamed from behind the bar, grabbing a billy club and smacking the bar top with it. She used her other hand to usher out Willie through the doors behind the bar, which led to the offices where she and Bud did all the business transactions for Lucky Strikes.

  She smacked the bar again and smiled at me. I gave her the thumbs up because we had pulled it off. It couldn’t have gone any better if I had planned the whole thing out.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Derek came out of nowhere and grabbed Antonio by the neck of his shirt, stretching it even bigger than it already was.

  Alex and Adam Fiddle, the twins of Fiddle and Sons Meats, in their Here For The Beer bowling shirts with their bowling bags in hand, stood next to the bar taking it all in.

  Antonio and Jax were like two dogs stuck together and Derek was the fire hose. It took a few minutes, but Derek managed to get them apart. His chest heaved up and down, both his arms stuck straight out to the side.

  “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but if you two don’t get your shit together, I’ll haul you both down to the Walnut Grove lockup and leave you there over night.” Derek looked between them. He glanced over at me. I gave him the I-don’t-know-open-eyes, lifted brow look.

  Jax wiped the blood off his lip with the back of his hand. His eyes hooded through his thick brows. He glared at Antonio, who seemed to forget about the whole thing. He had already walked over to the bar where Sheila put his big plate of nachos next to his beer.

  “I’m not going to bowl with that beast here.” Jax’s face held deep disgust.

  “I’m not going to stay if he doesn’t stay,” I protested, knowing my little scheme would be over before next week and we would all be copacetic. “Maybe we should take off this week and let everyone cool down.”

  “Fine with me.” Jax held his hands in the air and walked out of the bowling alley.

  We all watched him throw the door open and then watched it slam shut.

  “I think everyone is on edge due to Sally’s death and Willie’s escape.” I grabbed my beer and took another drink. “I’ll see ya.” I tapped Antonio on the back.

  My plan with him was done and had gone better than I had even thought.

  “Wait!” he yelled with a mouth full of nachos. “I need a ride back to my car. I’ve got to work in the morning!”

  “Where is your car?” Derek asked.

  “Let’s go.” I rushed Antonio along and avoided looking at the sour cream gathered in the corners of his mouth like spit.

  “I’m parked at K-Mart.” Antonio swirled his tongue around his lips, not missing a drop of food.

  “K-Mart?” Derek questioned, stopping me in my tracks. His practical masculine eyes took in everything, including my reaction.

  “Yeah,” I tugged on Antonio. “Time to go.”

  “Where do you work?” For Derek’s amusement, he continued to ask questions keeping us there.

  “I work for the state of Kentucky in the corrections facility,” he announced with pride.

  “The where?” I asked.

  “He works for the prison system.” Derek turned to him and asked, “Which one?”

  “Le Grange. On the outskirts of Louisville.” Antonio held up his beer and drank the last swig. “Ah. That’s good stuff.” He pushed the bottle closer to Sheila who was taking it all in.

  “Okay. Ready?” I encouraged him to get out of there.

  “I can take him to his car.” Derek grinned. “I’m not in a hurry and I bet you got time for another beer since we aren’t bowling.” He stood there, simply looking at me. “Another round, Sheila.”

  “Coming up!” She twisted around and headed to the beer cooler to retrieve their bottles.

  “Fine.” My chin jutted out. I wasn’t going to win this one against Derek. My only hope was Antonio didn’t blow my plan.

  These days I didn’t know who was working for whom. Derek said he was going to let the FBI handle the whole situation with Willie as long as I stayed out of it. By the look on his face, he knew I wasn’t staying out of it.

  “I’m out.” I grabbed my hobo bag and strapped it around me.

  “Laurel,” Antonio’s face contorted. “I’m not interested in you. So this is so long. Au revior. Adios. Sayonara baby.” He cackled. “You hear a lot of shit like that in prison.”

  “Laurel.” Derek stopped me. No doubt to rub more salt in the wound. “Be at the docks tomorrow morning around six thirty for community service.”

  “Are you shitting me?” I had hoped with all the goings-on around Walnut Grove, Derek would’ve forgotten all about the little bank trespassing incident.

  “I’d never shit you.” He grinned pulling his beer up to his lips. “You’re my favorite turd.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked on out. The sun was still beating down making the humidity hang in the air. The only place of relief that was close was the library. I had a few hours to kill and I had a burning curiosity about the London family history.

  Chapter Twelve

  Walnut Grove Library was down on Third Street in an old Victorian home. The Chamber had spent a lot of time and effort in making the three-story library a good place for learning and reading.

  It was very interesting. The old family room was made into the mystery section, the kitchen was made into the non-fiction section, the sitting room was made into romance leaving all the Victorian furniture in there for ambiance. Each room of the old home had a specific literary theme. It was fun to browse. Donna Marple, the librarian, had even put in a coffee bar with a Keurig machine and all the fixins’.

  My main interest was in the attic portion of the home where they had hooked up two dinosaur computers from the Goodwill and had me come in to work on them since I was easily the best in town at fixing (hacking into) computers. It was out of my nature to help, but Trixie insisted.

  I pulled in front of the library; thankful it looked to be empty. The only mode of transportation I saw was Donna Marple’s bicycle with the basket on the front.

  “Laurel, I wondered when you were going to come back in.” She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. Her big blue eyes magnified under them.

  I never understood why she wore the long dresses, not even maxi style, but the long ugly ones from the eighties. There was a cute body under there. I had seen it several times down on the river when we would head down for a swim like all the other locals.

  She always had the prettiest blond hair and pale skin. Today her hair was in a topknot on the top of her head. A few loose pieces fell down around her shoulders, in a kind of messy bed head way and it looked pretty good on her. It would take Kim Banta hours to get my hair to look that effortless. Her face was still pale, probably from never getting her nose out of a book and out into the sun.

  “I found some information for you about Trigger Finger Tony and his family.” She plunked a stack of papers on the reference counter, which were really two card tables put together. “I ordered in some other books from the Library Association.” She put a pencil in her mouth and continued to talk. “They won’t be here until next week.”

  “Okay.” I was a little disappointed. The other books I had asked her to get were specifically about crime families in the New York City area around the time The Gorilla had taken over.

  “Let me get you a cup of coffee while you browse those.” She hurried back to the credenza where a chalkboard hung above it with the words Coffee Bar printed across it in red.

  I sat down at one of the old student desks and thumbed through the papers. It wasn’t anything I already hadn’t learned about the relationship between Trigger Finger Tony and my family. Trigger Finger’s father and my grandfather had made a deal to combine forces. All sorts of money were exchanged along with a pair of rings. Long story short, I was the keeper of the rings, therefore, I had inherited the millions of blood money. Most of it was in a safe place with Ben Bassman and some was in the floor of the orphanage. I was scared to use it, in case
it was marked or somehow traced back to my family, but Trixie insisted it was due to me for them sticking me in an orphanage my whole life.

  The idea of running a mob family did sound exciting, only my grandfather felt I wasn’t safe after my parents had been gunned down right in front of him. The blame fell on Trigger Finger’s family, ending the cease-fire leaving millions of dollars in the lurch. Luckily when Trigger Finger came to town, I was able to get him sent to prison for illegal firearms smuggling.

  When Trigger Finger spouted out all sorts of crazy notions that I belong to the biggest mob family in history, everyone had thought he’d lost his mind and has been in solitary confinement ever since. And I was glad no one ever questioned me. No one but Donna Marple.

  “I find it so interesting you looking up this information since Trigger Finger had said you were part of that world.” She put the coffee down in front of me. “Right?”

  “Right. Thanks.” I took a drink of the welcomed coffee. If I was going to meet Willie at midnight, I was going to need something to keep me awake.

  “And I thought you might find this interesting.” She flipped through the papers until she got to one where The Gorilla was holding a baby. “It’s the only article I could find with a mere mention of family.”

  The caption read: “The Gorilla holding an infant, believed to be a member of the London family.”

  With the research, I was hoping to get information about employees or anyone my grandfather could have paid off. The money belonged to the families he hurt and somehow I wanted to pay them back. I’d never tell Trixie or Ben because they would be against me.

  “If we count back to when this photo was taken, the baby would be about our age.” Donna curled up on her white lace-up tennis shoes as pleased as a pearl. “I wonder if she lives in New Jersey and has all his millions, but no one knows it’s her.”

  “Gee, I wonder,” I said in a monotone voice still looking at the picture.

  If this was me, it was the only picture I had of me as an infant. Trixie couldn’t afford a camera, so she said; little did we know The Gorilla was funding the entire orphanage. Trixie was thrifty with a penny. She made poor Abe Lincoln bleed. Hell, we had to dumpster dive for clothes. Go to the free food store for our commodity cheese and stand in front of the TV’s in the electronic section of K-Mart to see the daily news.

  Donna left me to sip my coffee and go through the articles, stopping a few times to look over my shoulder and make a comment. She was obviously as interested in my family as I was.

  Most of the articles were about my grandfather putting a hit out on someone. It was rumored a big time news reporter in the New York area was killed because he had made a remark on the news about our family and Grandfather didn’t like it.

  No wonder I was drawn to petty crimes and criminals. It had to be in the bloodline.

  “I’m sorry, Laurel.” Donna came back into the room. “It’s after midnight and I want to go home.”

  “Ohmygod!” I jumped up and grabbed the articles. “Thanks!”

  “You need to leave those here,” she instructed me. “Property of the library.”

  “Okay. What do I do with this mug?” I asked.

  “I’ll take it.” She grabbed it and went back to the coffee bar; I slipped the article with the photo in my hobo bag. There was no way she was going to keep what might be my only photo of me with my real family.

  “Thanks, Donna.” I waved. “I appreciate all your hard work.”

  “No big deal.” She shrugged and pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “It’s kinda fun and exciting. Especially since the mob came to our little town.”

  “Yeah. Exciting,” I muttered and hurried out.

  The Deans’ place was at least twenty miles off Main Street and I was going to be late. There was a little tug in my head hoping he had already left, but another tug in my heart to see him.

  The barn was a few acres away from Curly’s house, which was a little bit of the way down the road. I could see the barn outline from the illumination of the moon. There wasn’t a light on, but I still drove up and parked anyway. I turned off the headlights of the Old Girl and pulled around back.

  I was careful, on the way out here, to make sure no one, namely Eric, was following me. I’d be even more careful by pulling around the back of the barn where Trixie made us go to pluck weeds from their garden when Curly told her the orphans were stealing her vegetables.

  Cautiously I opened the door and let the sound of the country engulf me but the humid air got me instead. The twinkle of the stars reminded me of a million Christmas lights in the coal black sky.

  “Not going to rain tomorrow and we sure could use it.” Willie stepped out into the moonlight making me take a few quick breaths. I felt dizzy.

  “Yeah.” I laughed and made myself look up at the stars. “Trixie was always right.”

  Trixie said if the nighttime sky was full of stars, it meant there was no rain.

  “We definitely could use some rain.” I felt a couple sweat droplets roll down my cleavage.

  “I’m glad you showed up. Late as usual.” He smiled. He gave me the bedroom eyes that had seduced me many times before.

  “That is one trait I have yet to conquer.” I smiled and got out of the car. “I’m here to hear what you have to say before I turn you into Jax Jackson and his FBI buddy.”

  He dragged a bale of hay out of the barn door. He sat on the ground, leaned his back on the bale, and crossed the ankles of his boots. He reached behind his back and pulled a piece of straw out of the bale and stuck it in his mouth.

  “Damn, you still are pretty. And sexy.” His eyes watched every sway of my step.

  “The pen hasn’t been bad for you either.” Did he think I didn’t notice the biceps when he reached behind him?

  We were always good at foreplay, better at sex.

  “If I didn’t need your brain to save my ass, I’d take you right here.” He patted the spot next to him. “Just like old times.”

  “Thank God old times are in the past and the past is stored right up here.” I tapped my temple, ignoring the tingling in my body. It would be so easy to lie next to him and let him have his way. “And I can’t forget standing in front of Nashville Elvis. The smirking lip when he told me, after I insisted on waiting for you, that you weren’t going to show.” Tears gathered on the edge of my eyelids. “I waited four hours. Stood for four hours in front of Elvis because I knew you were going to come through those chapel doors. Four motherfucking hours.”

  “I’m telling you I didn’t rob a bank or kill a cop.” He took the straw out of his mouth and replaced it with a cigarette. He sucked in a draw and blew it out his nose. “Curly told me she told you about my history with them. Sally Bent was like a sister to me. She cleaned Curly and Bo’s house for years. That’s where some of the vegetables Trixie got for the orphanage dinners when she did cook came from. Curly would pay Sally in food.”

  I vaguely remember Trixie sending her over here. At the orphanage I only hung around Derek and Willie. Sally working here and getting paid in veggies made sense now.

  I had a little side business in the children’s home myself. When I would go to foster families, I would stock up on things like good smelling soaps, shampoos, and other little items I could get in my knapsack. I’d take them back to the orphans and sell them to them. Sally always paid me in vegetables. I took them too. Food around an orphanage that didn’t involve a government handout was scarce.

  “I did a lot of grunt work around here and learned how to garden. Curly and Bo became a family of sorts, only we knew they couldn’t show it in public.” Willie’s words stung.

  Most citizens in Walnut Grove didn’t like the orphanage or the image it gave to their quaint city. Nor did they like us strolling the streets in fear we would be stealing something. They weren’t too far off the mark with me. I lived up to their expectations, but now I could blame my shortcomings on my blood relatives.

  I let Willie ta
lk. I sat a little distance away hoping to keep the chemistry, which was obviously still between us, as far away as possible.

  “Bo had given me a key to a safety deposit box where he and Curly kept a few extra dollars. He gave me the key when I told him I was going to run off and marry you.” His voice cracked. “I was serious, Laurel. I went to the bank and did exactly what Bo told me to do. Tell the teller I had a key, show her the key and follow her to the room.” He gulped. He bit his lip. “I’ve only told Bo, Curly and Sally this because they have been trying to help prove it. I think that is why someone killed Sally.”

  “Because she was snooping around?” I asked and put my hands around my neck. Was I next?

  Slowly he nodded his head. He sat up. His face stern.

  “There was another teller and two other men in there. The two men had guns. The other teller was dead. The two men were arguing, both tugging on a safety deposit box that was open. Somehow a gun fired. I passed out. The next thing I know I wake up with a gun in my hand and the police standing over me.” He stopped, gathered himself. “One of the guys had been beaten to death. The other guy was gone. The gun was in my hand with my prints all over it.”

  I sat there listening. He sure could tell a believable story. I was hanging on hook, line and sinker, waiting for the rest of the story.

  “When I went to push myself up off the floor when the police screamed for me to get up, I saw two keys on the ground near my hand. I grabbed them, pretended to cough and swallowed them.”

  “What?” I was confused.

  “There was some sort of sting operation going on and the dead guy was an undercover FBI agent. The guy that got away was the bad guy and they were there to buy a very important key off the crook. When I came in, the sting went all to hell. The crook killed the tellers and the FBI guy. All I can figure is he didn’t have enough time to find the key under my arm, so he cleaned the damn gun and stuck it in my hand.”

  “How do you explain the gunpowder on your hand?” I knew enough to know you don’t have gunpowder on your hand unless you fire a gun.