“No.” I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Someone knows I’m close to figuring out who framed Willie Ray and they wanted to send me a message.”
“Geez, Laurel.” Derek’s voice was concerned. “What the hell have you done?”
“It doesn’t matter. Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
“Yes. You got to her in time.” He took a deep breath. “What in the world have you done? I told you to stay away from that case. I think Jax did too.”
“And did you think I was going to listen?” I asked as if he was losing his mind.
“I should’ve known better, but I thought you had grown up a bit and listened to someone for once.” He was mad.
“Well, I guess I’m not. And you need to figure out who did this to Sharon.” I glanced over at the preggo woman who was standing up looking in my direction. “I’ve got to go.”
“No.” Derek stopped me. “You need to tell me what you know about Willie Ray. Where is he?”
“I’m not saying. But I do know he was framed and there are two men in town looking for him. Charlie Haskel told me.” I hung up the phone.
Derek would be pissed at me, but I gave him enough information to get him curious and start looking around.
I grabbed my hobo bag and strapped it over my shoulder. “Good afternoon.” I waved at preggo and walked toward her. She dangled the cig from her mouth, grabbing a kid with each hand and snugging them tight to her body. “Are you Bethany Roth?”
“Who wants to know?” The bags under her eyes told me she didn’t sleep. Her dirty blond mussed-up hair told me she didn’t give a shit and life was hard. “Are you a cop?”
“Cop?” I laughed.
“You look like a cop.” She lifted her chin and looked at my clothes.
“Oh no.” I shook my head after I realized I was still dressed in the black slacks and white shirt. “I’m a private investigator and I’m here to ask you a few questions about the bank robbery that involved Willie Ray Bowman years ago. Can we talk?” I gestured toward her house.
“Come on.” She opened the door, shoved the kids in and snuffed out her cigarette on the brick on the side of her house, letting the butt fall down to the ground to join the cemetery of butts.
I followed her and her little rug rats into her house and shut the door behind me. The inside looked like the Hoarder show Trixie watched on Dish. There were dishes all over the place, all sorts of old molded food caked on them. Clothes strewn about. I even thought I saw a dirty diaper thrown in the corner of the room, but before I could confirm, I turned my head in fear I was going to throw up.
One of her kids started banging the wood coffee table with a hammer. I couldn’t tell if the marks were fresh or already on there. The poor table didn’t look like it had seen better days. The curtains were tread-bare and barely hung off the rod. If one of the kids would have tugged, the whole damn thing would come crashing down.
Bethany plopped down in a La-Z-Boy chair and rubbed her belly. Her eyes planted on me.
“So what you want to know?” she asked.
“Are you the Bethany Roth who worked there at the time of the robbery?” I asked. It was hard to picture this Bethany in a business suit working with customers.
“It was my first day. My first job out of high school. I hope that sonofabitch is caught and hung.” Her mouth curled. Anger boiled into her eyes.
“I’m taking it you don’t like Mr. Bowman. Ouch!” I grimaced when one of her rug rats threw the sippy cup right into my shin.
“Joey! That is not nice. You want me to whoop your ass?” she screamed. “You upsetting the baby in mommy’s belly!” She rubbed her stomach. “Get on in that room back there!” She jabbed into the air.
Little Joey flipped his mom the bird and she laughed. My jaw dropped as I continued to rub the hurt from my shin. I wanted to sit down, but I was afraid I’d pick up a family of bed bugs.
“I blame this life on Mr. Bowman.” She fumed. “I was going to make something of myself and as you can see, all I’ve done is get knocked up and poorer at it.”
“How was this Mr. Bowman’s fault?” I asked out of curiosity, not that it was going to help why I was here.
“I couldn’t go back in fear of getting killed. He made me fearful of getting a job anywhere. Rat bastard.” She picked up an unlit cigarette and held it in her fingers. “I can’t stop smoking. No wonder little Joey is a hellion.”
No, little Joey was a hellion because she wasn’t a good mother. I took another look around.
“Can you tell me what you recall about the day?” I asked.
My phone chirped a text. I pulled it out of my back pocket. Jax had sent a picture of him, Trixie and Eric sitting in the rocking chairs on the orphanage porch. All of them smiling and wearing a tin foil hat. Poor Eric was getting a dose of Trixie.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“One of your kids?” Bethany asked.
“Oh no. I don’t have kids.” I shook my head and leaned over a little with my phone held out so she could see the photo. “I grew up in an orphanage. That older woman was in charge and she became my surrogate mom.”
“You know Kip Winger?” She looked up at me.
“Kip who?” I pulled my phone back.
“Kip Winger. The guy in the photo.” She pointed to my phone.
“What guy?” I asked and showed her the photo again.
She pointed to Eric Riley. “That’s Kip Winger.”
“Yeah, Kip.” I played along. Something told me Eric was full of shit just like I thought the day he walked out of the airport when I picked him up. “How do you know him?”
“Obviously you are here to make sure I keep my mouth shut.” She leaned back in to the chair and drummed her fingers together. “As you can see, I could use a little more hush money.”
“Oh I have money.” I played along, keeping my game face on. “So you caught me. I’m not a private investigator. I’m one of Kip’s assistants.”
“You look way better than the normal one.” She shrugged.
“What does the other one look like?” I asked. “I might know him.”
“Tall. Thin. Black hair cut like a military man. Little black mustache above his lip.” She put her finger across the top of her lip like a mustache. “He keeps up with me pretty good. But he doesn’t pay like he should. Now that Willie Ray has broke out, I expected someone to come pay me off again.”
“In order for me to get you more money, I need to go over what you remember.”
“Nothing.” She grinned. Her eyes narrowed. “Just like Kip told me. Nothing.”
“I know nothing.” I winked. “But I need the truth. What did you see that day?”
“Seriously?” she asked. Her brows dipped.
“Seriously,” I said.
“I did like Kip told me. I got a job at the bank. I opened up the safety deposit box for him for the five thousand dollars and got transferred to the other bank and opened the safety deposit box there. You’re stupid.” She laughed.
“Yeah, stupid.” I tried to put the order of events she was saying in my head. “So you went to work where first?”
“Federal Savings in Lexington.” She rolled her eyes. “Once I opened the safety deposit box for him, I put in the transfer to the Louisville branch just like he asked. It worked and I opened the safety deposit box there. And when the deal was to be finished, I was quitting. Only the deal went south and that girl I worked with got killed.”
“Wait.” I shook my head. “Are you telling me that Kip, the guy in my photo, asked you to do all this stuff and paid you to keep your mouth shut.”
“Duh.” She drew back looking at me like I was crazy. “If you work for him, you should know. Right?”
“Right. I’m kinda new so I wasn’t sure what you did know and what you didn’t.” I had to get the truth out of her. “So start by telling me how the Federal Savings deal in Louisville went down.”
“I put his money in the safety deposit
box in Lexington and got transferred. I opened the safety deposit box like he asked.” She huffed and puffed. “I stuck the key from the safety deposit box in Lexington into the one in Louisville so he could get the key and get his money.”
It was all mind confusing. I couldn’t believe it. Eric…
“He thought I was a dumb ass who didn’t know a crime when I saw one. So I refused to give him the key until he told me where all the money came from, then I asked for more.” She smiled at her hatched plan. “He fell for it and gave me that fifty thousand.”
“Where did the money come from again?” I asked and pretended to search my brain for answers.
“He took those bribes from the criminals from the prison to get paroled. That loser who works for him did the dirty work on the inside.” She shook her head. “So when am I getting my money?”
“It looks like my work here is done,” I noted. “He will be here within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Good. He ain’t been here since he knocked me up with this one.” She rubbed her protruding belly. “Little Joey misses his daddy.”
“Is your oldest Kip’s?” I was about to crap my pants. Eric led a double life and stopped at nothing to get what he wanted.
“Nah. Mistake baby.” She snarled. “Kip has money and I used it to my advantage. I knew he’d pay to take care of his kids. He does. But I want more.”
“And you’re going to get it.” I smiled.
“It’s going to take a lot of money to take care of three brats. You make sure you tell him I want fifty thousand per kid or I go straight to the feds!” She hollered on my way out.
I got back in the car and tried to digest what I had just learned. Bethany’s beady little eyes stared at me through her threadbare curtains. Her eyes were haunting. My insides danced. I had the information I needed to prove Willie Ray Bowman had neither killed anyone nor was he going to leave me at the altar. Plus Gilbert, Eric, Kip or whatever the hell his true identity was, was about to get exposed for who he really was.
Little Miss Bethany was smarter than Eric thought she was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Crap! Crap! I raced back to Walnut Grove as fast as I could. My phone had died and I had no way of getting a hold of Derek, Jax, or Trixie. The picture Jax had sent me of Eric sitting on the front porch of my home put a sick feeling in my stomach. There he was, thinking he was going to get away with it. There was no doubt in my mind he was frantically trying to find Willie Ray before anyone and kill him. Keeping Willie quiet was Eric’s number one goal.
He knew I was digging. I bet he was the one who hit Sharon in the head and intended on killing her. He was sending me a clear message.
My mind reeled with all sorts of scenarios but nothing was going to be proven until I confronted him.
The checkpoint agent stopped me.
“Name?” he asked and looked at a clipboard. He wasn’t the same guy there before.
“Why?” I asked. My heart beating so fast, I thought I was going to throw up.
“Just need to know your name,” he said. He looked down at me. I could see my reflection in the lens of his aviator glasses. He rubbed his hand across his mustache.
“Laurel London,” I whispered. Bethany’s words haunted my ears.
Dark mustache.
“I need you to get out of the car.” He opened the door.
I got out. The other agents were gone. I looked around to try to find an escape route.
“Put your hands on the roof please.” His voice was stern.
“Where are the other agents?” I asked and did what I was told.
He used his hands to pat up and down my body. Patting a little too long around my body on my breasts.
I jerked.
He pressed his body up against mine.
“I wondered when I was going to get to pat you down again, Jesus Jugs,” he whispered in my ear. His breath hot on my neck. “You feel good. Real good.”
“You!” I jumped around when I realized it was the corrections officer from Eddyville. “You and Eric? Kip?”
He grinned. “Let me have what I want.” He jerked my hands down to my side. “No one gets hurt. I’ll tell you all about my little plan with Kip. Plus you like it rough. You are a little criminal. We’d make a good team.” His words swirled in my head. “Be a good little girl. Kip told me you were snooping and I could have you.”
His lips seared down my neck. I jerked as much as I could but he was much taller and stronger than me.
Out of the corner of my eye, a big long stick came out of nowhere, knocking the agent off me.
“Willie!” I was never so happy to see him in my life.
“Get in the car and let’s go!” He kicked the corrections officer out of the way of the car and jumped in the driver’s seat.
I slid in the passenger side and with my body turned, watched as the officer disappeared into the distance.
“You aren’t going to believe what I found out.” I swallowed and told him everything that had gone on. “Kip, Eric, whatever the hell his name is, was taking bribes from people eligible for parole. He was making sure they got paroled. The extra key belongs to a safety deposit box at the Federal Savings in Lexington where some of the money is. Thousands of dollars. The guy back there was the correctional officer helping him from the inside.”
“Yeah. I knew him.” Willie didn’t take his eyes off the road. He drove the Old Girl so fast down River Road and took a swift right on Fifth Street. Shear Illusions and K-Mart whipped by in a blur. “He made sure I was in a living hell in prison.”
“I got a picture text from Jax. He and Eric are with Trixie.” I gulped. “Do you think Eric hurt Jax and Trixie?”
The thought made me angry and sad all at once. My eyes teared.
“I’ll beat the shit out of him if he touches her or you.” He didn’t bother looking my way. He swung the wheel left on Main Street and pushed the pedal as far as it could go. The Old Girl sped down the road on the outskirts of town toward the house.
“You can’t go in guns blazing. You are a shoot to kill.” I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“You have a gun.”
“It doesn’t have bullets. I shot the last one when we were in the kitchen.” I muttered, reminding him how the gun went off in my house. “It’s really just for scare.”
“What the hell, Laurel? For scare? You have lost your edge.” I could hear the worry in his tone. “I guess I’m going to have to take my chances.”
The car skidded across the road and flung around to the driveway of the orphanage. Jax’s car was not there. My heart felt a little better when I heard the TV blaring from the open window. Trixie was watching her favorite, Judge Judy.
Willie and I darted up the steps and through the screen door.
“Trixie!” I ran to her chair. Her tin foil head barely visible over the top of the chair.
“Wrong.” Eric sat in Trixie’s chair with the tin foil on his head and a gun pointed at me and Willie. A grin slowly crossed his face. “My, my, my. It’s my lucky day. Two for one.”
He stood up. He gestured with the gun for both of us to move into the kitchen through the family room door.
“Poor Trixie and Laurel. Your criminal lover came here to steal your car and killed you both. I got the gun and shot and killed him.” He jabbed me in the back near my ribs with the gun to move me along quicker.
I winced in pain and stepped into the kitchen. Poor Trixie was tied up with her hands and feet tied together like a hog. Her mouth stuffed with one of the dishtowels from the sink.
“Trixie!” I rushed to her side.
“Don’t touch her. Or she sees you die first.” Eric shoved Willie to the ground. “Okay lover boy,” Eric took the rope off the counter and threw it at him. “Tie your little girlfriend up and I mean tight.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something,” Willie Ray whispered and hog-tied me like Trixie.
“I met little Joey.” If I was going to di
e, I was going to die with him knowing I knew the truth. “And you have another one on the way.”
“You little bitch.” Eric shoved Willie out of the way and back-handed me sending me falling to the right.
Willie jumped up and in mid air, Eric shot the gun, hitting Willie in the shoulder.
Willie fell with a thud and groaned in pain.
“I’ll let you suffer a little.” Eric’s chest heaved up and down, his mouth slightly open. He took pleasure in seeing Willie in pain rolling around in his own blood.
Trixie looked away.
“I’m through with all of this.” Eric pointed the gun at Trixie’s head. “Tell me where the key is or her brains are for dinner.”
Trixie closed her eyes tight.
“I put it in the spine of a book in Eddyville library,” Willie cried out.
“So. . .” Eric slid his gun to my head. “That is why you went to the jail pretending to be a good girl Jesus lover.” He poked my temple with the butt of the gun. “You are good you little whore.” He twisted the butt. My eyes stayed focused on his eyes. I could see the evil deep within them. “You think your little hick act will steal the heart of my buddy, Jax? I’ve already got him thinking you are still a criminal. And he about died when I told him how you were engaged to Willie Ray and all the other stuff sweet, sweet Sally Bent told me before I killed her.”
“Jax knew this entire time?” I questioned.
“Oh yeah. And by the looks of it, I was right.” He glanced over at Willie who was now curled up in a fetal position. Blood was everywhere. “He knew you were helping your little boyfriend and I guess you got smart to the fact we had bugged your phone. But today. . .,” he paused, “you fucked up and showed up at Bethany’s. I sent him out on a goose chase while I kept Trixie safe. Little does he know, he’s out there chasing ghosts while I’m here taking care of business. But to him, me, you and Trixie were blindly attacked by Willie boy here.” He gave a swift kick to Willie’s head.
Checkered Past (A Laurel London Mystery Book 2) Page 16
