“No fucking way! That son of a bitch!”
I was on my feet and charging Slovineck before I could stop, but not before Poltrone could come up behind me, her arm stretching out to hook my neck and connecting instead with my left temple.
“Sit down!” Slovineck thundered.
I froze, suddenly aware of the trouble I could be in if I assaulted a fellow police officer. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I just don’t think you’re playing straight with me here.”
Slovineck’s face was red, but Poltrone’s was a black thundercloud of barely contained rage.
“I took the liberty of contacting the Garden Beach Police Department after receiving a fax requesting that we ascertain your whereabouts,” Slovineck said, his eyes boring into mine. “Imagine my surprise when I find that not only are you no longer on the job but that there’s actually a warrant out for your arrest.”
“I can explain all that,” I said. “It’s not what it seems. I think right now you should be focused on looking for my aunt, not pissing around with some penny ante bullshit trumped up by an old boyfriend.”
Slovineck’s eyes hardened. He gave me the thousand-mile cop stare that means it don’t matter what you say, ain’t nobody gonna listen to you. He didn’t believe me. The fax he held in his hand had managed to throw him completely off the more important issue and right on to me.
I stood up again. “Forget it,” I said. “I don’t need this shit.” I turned to leave and saw Poltrone rise and block the door.
“I’m afraid we won’t be letting you leave,” Detective Slovineck said. “There’s the small matter of an arraignment and extradition back to Florida to face charges. And then we’d like to know more about the timing of your trip up here.”
I couldn’t believe it! They were looking at me as a suspect in my uncle’s death. They were going to arrest me!
I turned and looked at Slovineck, my mouth dropping open, eyes wide.
“This is a joke, right?”
Thirty minutes later I was in a cell, black smudges on my fingertips, and the images of Detective Poltrone smirking through the whole procedure still fresh in my mind. I sank down onto the hard metal bench and buried my head in my hands. I started drawing up a hit list with Pete and Lou Ann at the top of the most-wanted category. I was going to kill the two of them just as soon as I got out of this godforsaken hellhole, caught Uncle Benny’s murderer, found my missing aunt and kicked some local po-lice ass.
Chapter 12
The road to hell is not paved with good intentions. I was well on my way to that particular destination and I knew my intentions were most definitely not good. My evil thoughts were probably the reason that on my personal highway to hell I was picking up speed and zooming downhill at a breakneck pace.
To start off with, Nina wasn’t home and wasn’t answering her cell phone, either. That meant my one phone call to the free world was a bust. The way my luck was going, Nina would never retrieve her messages, and I’d be forced to spend eternity with a three-hundred-pound, tattooed woman named Little Vicious.
To further grease the on ramp to the Satanic Speedway, I had company. Paint Bucket and Weasel arrived to pay their respects just as the jailor circulated through with lunch. They were dressed in full EMT regalia, white shirts with multiple patches, navy-blue pants with thick black rubber-soled shoes and stethoscopes tethered to their necks by bright yellow cords.
“Hey,” Weasel cried. “We heard you were in here, but Paint Bucket didn’t believe it, so we came by to see for ourselves.”
Paint Bucket’s eyes were wide and he shook his head slowly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Gus told me they’re holding you on attempted murder,” he whispered. “That can’t be true. Is that true? You tried to whack somebody?”
What the hell? I met his gaze and smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “And I ain’t sorry. Dem suckas will never take me alive!”
Weasel’s eyes popped out of his ratlike face. “Aw, man!”
Paint Bucket shook his head again, catching the sarcasm but unable to stop himself from believing it anyway. “Stella,” he muttered. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they’ll take you alive. They already got you! You don’t say that kind of stuff from the inside. You say it when you’re holed up in your hideaway, like Butch Cassidy and the Sun-dance Kid.”
Bucket looked over his shoulder and leaned in closer. “You keep talking like that and word will get out you’re a flight risk. Let me tell you, that ain’t a good thing. They won’t give you no bail. You’ll be somebody’s bitch before you know it!”
Weasel frowned. “She can’t be somebody’s bitch if she’s a girl, right? I mean, that’s only in men’s prison, isn’t it? Over here she’d be what, somebody’s old man?”
“I believe the term you’re searching for is husband,” I answered.
Paint Bucket groaned. “Stella, Stella, Stella! When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee here. This is some serious shit! You gotta set these people straight. Tell ’em it’s a conspiracy.” Paint Bucket gave me a serious look. “Listen, Stel, I know we didn’t hang out a lot in school, but you were always nice to us. Let us help out if we can, all right. It’s not like you have too many options, you know?”
I looked around my cell, then back out at my two jail-house attorneys. Bucket was absolutely right. I needed them and I should be grateful for their help.
“All right,” I said, resisting the temptation to be a smart-ass. “I need you to do something for me, okay?”
Weasel and Paint Bucket nodded vigorously. “Anything,” Weasel said. “You just say the word.”
“Find Nina and tell her I said to get me out of here!”
“You got it!” Weasel said. “We’re on it!”
“She’ll be here within the hour,” Paint Bucket added.
I shrugged. “I don’t know how you’ll pull that off. She wasn’t home and she isn’t answering her cell phone. You’re gonna have to find her first.”
Bucket smiled. “Not a problem. I ran into her this morning in the Jiffy Mart. She was getting gas on her way to the airport. She said she was going to pick somebody up.” Bucket glanced at his watch. “I figure she’ll be home any time now.”
Weasel glanced back at the door leading into my cell block, straining to see something just beyond my line of vision.
“Being in the lockup give you a case of the heebie-jeebies?” I asked.
Weasel shook his head and gestured toward the thick metal. “No, it’s not that. I just stuck my hand in my pants and found a joint in there. I don’t want one of them drug-sniffing canines to take a chunk out of my ass.”
Paint Bucket grabbed Weasel and spun him around toward the exit door. “You idiot!” he growled. “You got any idea what’ll happen if you get caught with that thing?”
“Bucket, it ain’t like I did it on purpose or nothin’! It’s not even mine! I fell asleep watching TV last night and the next thing I knew it was morning. I was already late, so I just grabbed my brother’s pants ’cause I thought they were clean. How was I supposed to know?”
Wasn’t that just the way the world went around? Everybody tells you to wear clean underwear in case you wind up in an accident. Of course, it never occurred to us to question the hygiene of the EMTs who ride to the rescue.
I walked back to my cold metal bench and sat, watching as Paint Bucket tugged his friend through the door to the freedom of the outside world. Nothing made sense to me. I never figured that Pete would actually press charges. Was this why the local police suddenly thought I had something to do with my uncle’s murder?
I was still puzzling it over in my head and coming to no conclusions when the jailor came for me. He shuffled up slowly, a round bowling ball of a man with a wrinkled, ill-fitting uniform and no personality.
“Time to go to court,” he announced in a low monotone. He didn’t look at me; instead he focused on the square tiles of linoleum in front of his feet.
“But
I haven’t—”
The little man interrupted me. “Your lawyer just got here and the judge says hurry it up, they’re working you in to get you out.”
“I don’t have a lawyer. That’s the problem.”
He held the iron-barred door open, motioning toward the long corridor before us.
“Yeah, you do,” he said. “That’s how come you’re up first this afternoon.”
“I do?” I sputtered. “I am?”
“Keep moving,” he barked.
“Why didn’t I get to talk to my attorney before court?” I demanded. This seemed to further irritate my escort. For the first time since he’d approached my cell, he looked up at me and frowned.
“Do I look like your social secretary?” he groused. “It’s not a requirement, you know. Maybe your attorney was busy. Maybe he had hemorrhoids and didn’t feel like sitting on a hard wooden chair and chatting. Maybe you didn’t pay him enough. Maybe they don’t pay me enough to keep up with who sees who, when or why. Maybe I just don’t give a shit.”
“Let me guess,” I said, coming to a halt in the center of the hallway. “You didn’t receive enough affection as a child, so now as a defense mechanism, you have foresworn all humanity.”
His nametag read Gus. His face, as well as his bald head, was glowing a dusky, angry red and he seemed ready to explode.
Gus took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “Like I said,” he said, “they don’t pay me enough to take this abuse.”
He grabbed my arm and pushed me none too gently forward. A uniformed officer stood in front of a door at the end of the hallway, waiting. When we reached him, he opened the door to the courtroom and suddenly there I was, center stage. We walked in front of the bench and headed toward my place behind a long wooden table. I didn’t look out at the spectators, instead keeping my focus on the two women seated and waiting for me.
Nina, dressed in a charcoal-gray business suit and looking nothing like her funky self, hopped to her feet as I approached. The statuesque brunette beside her also rose to her feet. The suit she wore screamed money and prestige, but there the nod to courtroom conformity ended. Her hair stood out in short, molded tufts. Her left eyebrow was pierced and sported a diamond that I put at two carats, easy. It was the real thing, too, sparkle, cut and clarity. She had the attention of every man in the room and I was fairly certain she knew it.
“Stella,” Nina chirped. “This is Spike!”
Nina was beaming, practically hopping up and down with pleasure.
“Spike?” I echoed. “But I thought…”
Nina’s face clouded for a brief moment. “I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen!”
“Uh, pleased to meet you,” I said, sticking out my hand and trying to wipe the surprise off my face. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Great, I thought. Well, Nina had tried to tell me.
Spike grinned. Her eyes were a brilliant green. “Well, I guess you didn’t hear everything about me,” she said. Spike turned to a sheaf of papers on the table in front of us, her expression becoming serious. “The judge is giving me a few minutes to talk to you before we start. What’s going on?”
I looked around the courtroom, making sure we weren’t overheard, and told her about Pete, Lou Ann and Slovineck’s questions about the timing of my trip and my alibi for the time of my uncle’s murder.
Spike listened, taking careful notes and nodding. “Why do you think he’s decided to press charges?” she asked.
Before I could answer, a door opened to the left of the judge’s bench. The bailiff cried out, “Oy yea, oy yea!” and Spike stopped smiling.
“I’m assuming you’re not guilty?” she whispered.
I nodded. Spike smiled again, and the race was on. Nina shuffled papers and file folders. Spike looked over her competition at the next table, and the judge stared at all of us, a bored expression on his face, at least until he realized who was representing me.
“Spike Montgomery, is that you?” he cried.
“The walking one and only, Your Honor,” she answered. “Miss me?”
The new D.A. frowned.
“Your Honor,” he protested.
The judge raised one thick eyebrow and the D.A. backed off. Spike smiled softly and the formal proceedings began.
The judge looked out at me and spoke. “Ms. Valocchi, I’m assuming you know why you’re here?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he rumbled. “Then you also know that this is just a preliminary hearing. We’ll hear the formal charges, see if there are grounds for extradition and set bail if that’s appropriate.” The last few words were aimed at the D.A., a small man with thick, curly hair and a snarly attitude.
The little man jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, representatives of the Garden Beach Police Department have come all this way.…”
Spike turned to the D.A.’s table and watched her opponent coolly. From my vantage point I had a clear view of the D.A. but could only see Spike’s profile. The D.A. puffed out his chest like a bantam rooster and turned around to look out into the row of benches behind him.
I turned in my seat, my heart in my throat, trying to catch a glimpse of the Garden Beach P.D. representative. I wondered who’d been elected to escort me back to Florida.
There was movement on the far left side of the court-room. My former partner, Lou Ann Ross, slowly rose to her feet, ignoring our side of the room, her thousand-watt smile aimed at the judge.
“May I see the warrant?” Spike asked. Her voice was as thick and sweet as honey, but I saw the tip of one stiletto heel begin to tap impatiently.
LouAnn ignored Spike and waited for an order from the bench. I searched the rows of spectator seating, knowing LouAnn wouldn’t have come alone. I must have gasped, because Nina reached out for my arm and followed my gaze.
“Stella, what is it? What’s wrong?”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to look away.
“It’s Pete,” I whispered. “He’s here. With her.”
Nina frowned. “Pete who? Her who? What is it, Stella?”
The judge directed Lou Ann to produce the papers, and without another word she leaned down and reached into a slim brown leather portfolio. Then she reached deeper, her hair falling across her shoulders like a waterfall and hiding the frantic intensity of her search.
The D.A. cleared his throat. Pete leaned forward in his seat, and Spike seemed to be the only calm person in the cramped courtroom. She was smiling softly and humming a wordless little tune. The longer Lou Ann took, the happier Spike seemed.
Finally a red-faced Lou Ann was forced to look up, her eyes meeting the D.A.’s in a mute appeal.
“I don’t understand,” she said in a strangled Southern accent. “It was right here when I left Garden Beach. I know it was.”
I had a sudden mental image of Pete and Lou Ann stopping at some cheap motel for the night. I could just imagine Lou Ann saying, “Wait, I brought a little surprise, Petey!” She’d cross to the thin briefcase and root through it, emerging triumphantly with a blindfold and maybe a small leather whip.
“Here, Daddy,” she’d coo, not noticing that the warrant had slipped out as she tugged the toys free. “I’ve been a bad, bad girl!”
I shut my eyes and felt a grin begin to grow along with my overactive imagination. Lou Ann and Pete, wrapped up in their night of illicit sex, probably drinking on top of it, would oversleep the next morning. In their hurry to make the court date on time, the little manila envelope would remain behind, stuck between the motel air conditioner and the bed. Yeah, that’s how it happened. At least, that’s what I was praying for, a cozy little cosmic accident.
“No warrant, no charges,” Spike said. “Surely you can’t deprive my client of her freedom on the basis of a he-said, she-said attempted-murder charge.”
“Wait! Wait!” Lou Ann cried. “I just know it’s in here somewhere!”
She was on her feet and through the swinging gate that separ
ated the legal eagles from the unwashed masses. She walked right up to the judge’s bench and without stopping for due process or permission, upended the portfolio right under the judge’s nose.
Out rained papers, envelopes, pens, a packet of tissues, a pink lipstick tube and a long silver cylinder that fell onto the table with a loud clunk. This was followed by a low-pitched hum, unmistakable to most of the women and half the men in the room.
“Jesus!” I heard Pete moan.
“Oh, my God! Give me that!” Lou Ann cried.
The judge, staring at his desk in disbelief, started to reach for the tube.
“Don’t touch that, Judge!” the bailiff shrieked. “It could be a bomb!”
At the word bomb, the unenlightened broke into a frenzy of panic, jumping up from their seats and attempting to flee before Armageddon. Those of us who knew a vibrator when we saw one were laughing too hard to prevent their escape.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” the judge swore.
“I’m coming! Look out!” the bailiff yelled.
With a mighty lunge, the brown-uniformed bailiff scaled the witness box and launched himself into the air. He soared for a moment like a misplaced basketball before plummeting down and landing on top of the judge’s bench with a smacking belly flop. He lay there, stunned and panting, eyes wide as he absorbed the vibration of the silver rocket, clearly waiting for his imminent demise.
“Joe,” the judge thundered. “Get the hell off my desk! It’s a vibrator, you fool! Women use it to create and enhance sexual pleasure! It is not a bomb!”
Joe raised his head, looked out at the riveted spectators and decided to save his pride at all cost.
“You know how it is these days, Your Honor!” he said. “I was just being cautious.”
Joe pushed up into a sitting position, grabbed the offending vibrator and clutched it to his chest.
Stella, Get Your Gun Page 14
