by Mike Faricy
“He told me he had plans to put in a golf course and build some condos, do some sort of timeshare lease thing. He promised to name the golf course after me,” Nancy said then half laughed to herself. Marcia reached over and squeezed her hand.
Swindle seemed to adjust to a little more comfortable position. Her head was still in my lap, but thankfully she remained asleep. Woofy was softly curled up in the far corner of the backseat and continued to snore.
“What’s next here, ladies?” Richie asked a few minutes later. We’d come to a complete stop, with the headlights illuminating a fork in the road. The road to the right was a lot narrower and looked more like a long driveway. I could just catch the corner of a light blue vehicle and the reflection of what appeared to be a taillight sort of peeking out from behind the trees. To the left, the road seemed to curve down a slight incline. Through the trees you could see a number of lights coming from a large structure.
“The left one brings you down to the cabin, you can see the lights through the trees there. If he’s here, his car will be parked right in front.” Nancy said.
“Is there another way out of here?” I asked.
“Not by car. If you drive down the road, you’ll see where it opens to a large parking area. It’s probably big enough to turn this around. If you park on this drive, you’ll block his car in and he won’t be able to get around you.”
“Turn your headlights off and creep down the drive so he doesn’t know we’re coming,” Marcia added.
Richie turned off his headlights and slowly rolled the limo down the incline. Fortunately, the full moon coming through the occasional break in the trees was just bright enough to illuminate the way. I shook Woofy’s knee a couple of times with my foot in an effort to wake him up. But all it did was cause him to snort once or twice, sort of curl into a tighter ball, and move as far away from me as possible.
I took hold of Swindle’s shoulder and gently shook her. “Swindle, I mean Pepper. We’re here, it’s time to get up. Come on, Pepper, get up.”
She rubbed her face back and forth a few times on my lap and groaned, “I can’t get it up. Help yourself.” Then rolled over on her back and began snoring.
“Might be best if we just left her,” Nancy said.
“Both of them,” Marcia added.
Chapter Forty-Seven
We left Swindle and Woofy asleep in the backseat and gathered around at the rear of the vehicle. Richie’s white stretch limo, all shiny and waxed, glistened in the moonlight and seemed to look like some sort of giant banana split.
Nancy had been right; Austin’s silver Jaguar was parked out in front of the cabin. Cabin was a generic term. The place was gigantic, made of logs and lit up like a Christmas tree. The logs were stained a sort of light butternut color beneath what looked like a green roof. Lights appeared to be on in just about every room of all three floors. The third floor featured four dormers each with a bright light shining out of the window. Smoke rose from the chimney, signaling a fire in the fireplace although it really didn’t feel cool enough to warrant one. A front porch ran the width of the structure with smaller logs arranged in a pattern along the length of the porch forming a rustic railing. Three large windows sat on either side of the front door.
“I’m open to any ideas,” I said.
“We could always just kick the door in,” Tom said.
“I don’t know, it’s pretty solid. I bet the planks are at least three inches thick,” Nancy said.
“Actually, I was just kidding.”
“I’m thinking you could just knock on the door,” Richie said.
“Yeah, that’s got my vote,” Marcia added.
“Anyone have a better thought?”
No one did, so we moved as a group across the parking area, around the silver Jaguar, then climbed the massive porch steps made of split logs. The logs on the steps were thick enough that we really didn’t make a sound until we were on the porch, and then it was just four quick steps to the entry and the doorbell.
I pushed the doorbell and we could hear it chime a Big Ben chime that seemed to go on forever. When no one answered I pushed the doorbell again and waited.
Tom walked over to one of the windows and looked in. “Hey, I can see him, both of them. He’s sitting there in front of the fire, just seems to be staring at the flames. That your friend next to him, the dark haired woman?”
I stepped away from the door and looked in the window. The room was large, with a stone fireplace that rose all the way up to the ceiling. The interior walls were all logs except on either side of the fireplace where shelves loaded with books rose to the ceiling. A ladder on wheels was attached to both book cases and pushed into the respective corners of the room.
Hackett sat in a wooden chair in front of the fireplace. His arms rested on the arms of the chair and he just seemed to stare. Heidi was sitting on one of two brown leather couches with her back to us. I recognized the blonde patches in her dark hair.
“Marcia, ring that doorbell again,” I said.
A moment later, we could clearly hear the chimes ringing inside the house. Neither Hackett nor Heidi seemed to move.
“Jesus, you don’t think they’re dead, do ya?” Tom asked, then looked at me with a worried look on his face.
“Give that doorbell another ring, see if that gets them moving.” We heard the chimes a moment later, but Hackett and Heidi continued to just sit there.
“Shit,” I said then hurried back to the front door and frantically pushed the doorbell a half-dozen different times. “Come on, come on, answer the damn door, you jackass.” Then I reached down, turned the brass knob and the door swung open.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Nancy shot me a quick look, then stepped into the entry way. “Wait a minute, let me go first,” I said and held her back. I pulled the .38 out of the holster tucked in my belt and cautiously stepped inside, looking around. I didn’t see anyone except Hackett and Heidi seated in the large room.
Heidi glanced over at me, moving just her eyes, then screamed, “Dev, oh thank God, thank God.” She jumped off the couch and ran toward me just as everyone else swarmed in through the front door.
Hackett suddenly turned his head, then shouted, “Get me the hell out of here before that crazy woman comes back. She was insane, an absolute nut case…” He suddenly grew very quiet once he saw Nancy and Marcia. His eyes seemed to focus on first one woman, then the other before coming to rest on Tom Connelly. “You have got to be kidding me. If this is your idea of a joke, I’m going to see each and every one of you behind bars. Do you have any idea the trouble…?”
“Shut up, Austin, just shut the hell up,” Nancy shouted then reached in her handbag and pointed a small handgun at Hackett as she walked toward him. “It is literally taking every ounce of my self-control not to blow what little brains you have all over this rug that I picked out and paid for. So just shut the hell up.”
“Now calm down, butter cup, you know how you…”
“Don’t you dare call me that, ever again. I’m not joking, Austin just shut up for once in your miserable, sorry existence. Do you hear me? Shut up, shut up, shut…”
“Nancy, maybe if you just give me that,” I said softly, then indicated the pistol in her shaking hand. I could tell she was exerting pressure on the trigger. I didn’t know how much further she had to go before it fired, but it couldn’t have been very much.
She stared at me for a moment, then exhaled and handed me the pistol.
Hackett seemed to let out a loud sigh.
“Nancy?” Heidi said, and shot a quick look at Hackett, then gave a questionable look back toward Nancy. “Were you really married to Austin?”
“I was his last wife, at least that we know of. This is Marcia,” Nancy said taking Marcia by the hand and pulling her closer. “She was married to him before me.”
“Oh, this is absolutely insane. Stop it, all of you. Honey, these are nothing but a bunch of two-bit actors attempting, for some unkn
own reason, to absolutely ruin the best opportunity that you’ve ever had. Now, I’m within my rights to ask, no, demand, that all of you leave our private home immediately. I don’t know what you were paid for this tawdry performance, but I can assure each and every one of you that if you don’t leave immediately you can look forward to your day in court. Now, darling if you don’t mind,” he said then raised both arms and for the first time I realized he’d been handcuffed to the chair.
“I thought it was a crazy woman who followed us up here. She threatened to kill Austin. Made me handcuff him to that chair and told us if we moved when you rang the doorbell, that she was going to shoot Austin.”
“A crazy woman?” I said.
“Connie?” Marcia and Nancy said, almost together.
“Why yes, that was the name she used. She said she’d been married to Austin and that he stole her inheritance. She told me about the two of you,” Heidi said and nodded at both Nancy and Marcia. “I didn’t know what to think, it all seemed so, so crazy. But now I guess it really is true. Isn’t it?”
“We better sit down and talk,” Nancy said. “You need to hear what we have to say, all of us.”
“Darling, this is going to be your home, too. I’m not sure what desperate stunt your low-life, former boyfriend is trying to pull here, but the whole thing smacks of insanity. Now, I have a very special little something that will outweigh any nonsense these fools are attempting to tell you. Please,” Hackett said raising his voice. “I’m asking all of you for the last time to leave this home immediately or I’m going to call the police. Is that clear enough? The police, I mean it.”
“Where’s your phone, Hackett? I’ll dial for you. That very special little something you have for her. Did it look something like this?” I said and pulled the sheets out of my pocket from Detective Randolph with the images of the stolen jewelry. I unfolded them and paged to the image of the diamond bracelet. “Or, maybe you were just going to go for the home run and lay this on her,” I said, then flipped the sheet over to the image of the diamond ring.
“Where did you get that? This is simply the most ridiculous bit of…”
“Shut up, or I’m going to give Nancy her gun back. These were all stolen, Heidi. Look, here’s an image of that diamond necklace he gave you in the restaurant. Check this one out. The diamond earrings you’re wearing right now? They were all stolen from his neighbor’s house.”
“Karen and Jim Prescott?” Heidi said with a shocked look.
“I’m sure they filed a report, that’s public knowledge. Any idiot could have substituted those images for…”
“They were stolen by a guy named Hilton Brady and his friend, Cyril. Hilton’s from Chicago. By the way, one more guy you screwed, Hackett.”
“He threatened me with a lawsuit,” Tom said. “He was going to sue my wife and me for over a hundred grand. I’ll be up to code next week for a lot less. He threatens the big suit, then settles out of court and keeps the money. Never does what he says he’s going to do. He doesn’t help folks; he just screws them. I’m going to love seeing you go to jail, Hackett. That’s after they disbar your worthless ass.”
“Come sit down and talk with us,” Nancy said. Then she and Marcia led Heidi over to the couch and sat down, one on either side of her. Heidi clutched the images of the stolen jewelry in her hand, then looked from Nancy to Marcia as they began to tell their story.
“Come on, let’s let the ladies talk. I happen to know where the kitchen is,” Richie said, then walked into the adjoining dining room and through a swinging door. Tom and I followed.
“You know,” I said about a half hour later, taking another bite of the deluxe pizza we’d baked. “I should probably wake up Swindle and Woofy. They’re still asleep out in the limo.
“Leave ‘em,” Tom said.
“I’d just as soon those two didn’t spend the night in my limo,” Richie said. “Remember there’s a bar set up in there.”
“Well, just keep her away from me. We’re heading back tomorrow morning?” Tom asked.
“That going to work for you?”
“Let me just text the wife, and let her know we’re working on getting Hackett sent to jail. She’ll be fine with it,” he said then pulled out his phone and proceeded to send a text message.
“I’ll go get those two,” I said and stepped outside to wake them.
At first, I thought it might be the trees or maybe the moonlight dimming as some clouds maybe rolled across the sky. But, it was a clear night and as I approached, all doubt was quickly erased. The stretch limo was definitely rocking and the windows in the rear were all fogged up.
I opened the rear door and was greeted with a sight I would have just as soon avoided, Woofy and Swindle in a romantic embrace. Woofy was groaning and Swindle kept moaning, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing and just stood there looking at the trees in the moonlight as the limo continued to rock. Eventually, Woofy seemed to gasp and Swindle pushed him off. “Let me just catch my breath and you can be next,” she said.
“No, that’s all right. Whenever you’re finished, we got some pizza inside and they’ve invited us to spend the night. So we’ll be heading back tomorrow morning.”
“Pizza,” Woofy said, quickly rolling onto his back and buckling his jeans.
“Don’t know what you’re missing,” Swindle said.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Everyone chose a room. Nancy and Marcia settled into a guest room with matching twin beds. Tom took a room on the third floor with a lock on the door. Richie grabbed the room next to him. Woofy and Swindle ended up in the workout room eyeing a padded bench with straps to tie and metal bars to hang onto. I didn’t want to know anything beyond that.
Heidi chose the master suite and proceeded to run a hot bath. “God, I just want a hot soak and some sleep.”
I was sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed with black silk sheets. The only light came from a lamp sitting on the bedside table. She stepped in front of me, then reached up and pulled off the diamond earrings dangling from her ears. “You might as well have these. I’ll go through Austin’s luggage in the morning, or later tonight if I can’t sleep. See if I can find the ring and that bracelet. God, how could I have been so stupid, Dev?”
“You weren’t stupid, Heidi. You were just,” I wanted to say a couple of different things, but figured now was not the time. “You were just lied to.”
“I know, but still.”
“It’s okay. Hey, you’re still loved,” I said and then stood up and kissed her.
“Thanks. God, you’ve never said that to me before.”
“Oh Heidi, I didn’t…”
“Relax, I’m not holding you to anything. It was just nice to hear it at the end of the worst day of my life.”
“But like you just said, it’s the end of the day, it’s all over, it’s behind you.”
“Yeah, I guess. Dev?” she said, and lightly rubbed the side of my neck.
“Yeah, Heidi.”
“You want a pillow for the couch?”
* * *
The lights were off and the only illumination came from the dying fire. A small flame crawled up from between the charred wood and licked what was left of one of the logs before it disappeared into the bed of softly glowing coals. I could hear the antique clock on the fireplace mantel ticking as I tossed my pillow onto the far couch, then laid down, and pulled the tiger-skin fleece over me.
“I knew it,” Hackett half-whispered in the dim room.
“Hey, guess what? I’m really not interested in anything you have to say.”
“They just want to talk about their feelings, right? Oblivious to what a man wants, what a man actually needs. God gave all of them the natural equipment to rule the world, then with his warped sense of humor he gave them that female thought process.”
“You know, Hackett, I’m guessing based on where you’re about to end up that probably isn’t some
thing you’re going to have to worry about.”
“Can I level with you, Dev? Mind if I call you Dev?”
“No, you can’t level with me. You haven’t leveled with anyone for so damn long I’m sure you’ve forgotten how, if you ever even knew.”
“Suit yourself. It’s just that I had a sweetheart deal I was thinking of offering you. You don’t want to hear it, want to bust your ass the rest of your life for next to nothing, I guess that’s your choice.”
“I’m not really interested in any offer you might have, okay? So please just sit there and shut the fuck up.”
“Actually, I was going to throw Heidi in, too. I mean, I picked up on the fact that she’s still got it for you, knew it the first time we met that night at Desmond’s. Remember? I gave her the necklace and…”
“Stolen necklace.”
“I knew right then and there she still had a thing for you. I could feel it in the air. Later that night she was calling your name in her sleep…”
“Hey, Hackett, shut the hell up.”
“That’s really the reason we came up here. I wanted to break it to her gently, let her go so she could run back to you. I only wanted both of you to be happy. It’s what I want for all of them. I just don’t think they ever really knew what was going to make them happy. And if they don’t…”
“Will you please just, shut. Up.”
“Two hundred and fifty grand, a quarter of a million. It’s yours for the taking, Dev. All you’ve got to do is just let me walk out that door. Simple as that.”
“This may come as kind of a surprise to you, Hackett, but you don’t have a quarter of a million dollars. You barely have two quarters of your own to rub together.”
“Do I strike you as the kind of guy who wouldn’t have a little something set aside just in case of an emergency? My own private little “go to hell” fund.”
