Trouble in a Big Box (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery)

by Alter, Judy

  “There’ll be an investigation, and the house is a crime scene. Got to block it off.” Buck began to issue orders. “Mike, call Keisha. Have her get the girls when they get out of school and take them to their grandmother. Kelly, pack what you need to be away two days—for all of you. And decide where you’re going. House will be off limits.”

  I was stunned. All I wanted was to go back to bed and hide forever, and he was telling me to pack my family for two days? I couldn’t believe it.

  Conroy gentled a bit. “Kelly, I’m sorry. I understand how you feel. To shoot somebody kills a little bit of your soul, and you’ll probably never be quite the same person again. It makes you see life and death differently. But I can’t step in the way of police procedure.” He turned to Mike, “Shandy, find that damn walker and help this woman.”

  Mike said grimly, “I can do it without the walker.” First he called Keisha, who said, “I knew she shouldn’t stay home. I was on my way over there. Got to listen to myself better.”

  I grabbed the phone. “Keisha, don’t tell the girls I shot two people. God! I couldn’t bear for them to know that. Just tell them there was a problem at the house. Tell them Bella won’t be following us anymore. Take them for ice cream. Do whatever. Please?”

  “You got it,” she said, “What do I need to do for you? I’m kickin’ myself over here. I should have come babysat you. Wouldn’t have been no gunfire.”

  Mike grabbed the phone. “It’s too late for ‘what if,’ Keisha. Call Nana and Claire and Anthony, please. But tell them no visitors. We don’t even know where we’ll be.”

  “You’ll be at Miss Cynthia’s house. Ain’t no choice about that.”

  She was right. The four of us moved in with Mom. She would have it no other way. Mike and I took the guest room bed, and the girls both slept with Mom. Keisha brought the girls, who were puzzled and upset even without knowing that their mother had shot two people.

  “Why can’t I go home?” Maggie wailed. “My pajamas are there.”

  “I brought your pajamas,” I said. “We’re all going to have a sleepover at Nana’s.”

  Em didn’t brighten much at the prospect.

  “Something bad happened, Maggie,” Em replied calmly, “and they don’t want us to know about it.”

  Mike and I exchanged looks and realized we had to tell the girls the truth. If they thought we were hiding something, they’d never trust us again. So we all sat down, and I told them my story. “This morning, after I took you to school and Mike to the substation, I went back home to take a nap. While I was sort of half asleep, Bella and her brother, Ben, broke into our house. They meant to harm me, and I…I shot them.”

  Maggie gasped and hugged me tight, but Em asked, “Are they dead?” Her little voice was so calm and the look on her face so…oh, I don’t know…inquisitive, unemotional. She was almost clinical. It made me bury my face in my hands.

  “No, Em, they’re both in the hospital. They’re going to be all right, but they’re going to jail for a long time.”

  “We don’t have to worry about that green car following us?” Maggie asked.

  “No, no green car.” Some deep instinct made me add, “But we still have to be afraid.” After all, Tom Lattimore hadn’t called. Maybe instead of worrying about him, I should be worrying about his plans for me and my family. Maybe the two goons who beat Otto up would take over where Bella and Ben had failed. The possibilities for danger were endless.

  Keisha appointed herself phone monitor. Everyone in the world called—Claire wanted us to come to her house because it was larger, Anthony wanted to come see for himself that I was alright—I nearly told him I would never be alright again. Joe melted my heart when he said, “Tell Miss Kelly, when she feels better, not even to think about going to the Garzas’ house. I’ll go up there before I go to work tomorrow. I know the things to say to her. She knows about her kids, and I’ll make her accept it.” Joe knew that a visit to Mrs. Garza would be on my mind. Keisha did allow one visitor—Claire, who brought dinner and wine for all of us. Mom was too upset to cook.

  We ate roast beef and mashed potatoes and salad on disposable plates, drank wine out of plastic cups, and threw the whole thing in the trash. No cleanup. Claire left, saying, “Call me in the morning. The world will look better to you.”

  We urged Keisha to go home and get some sleep. We’d be safe with Mike there and José patrolling. She insisted she wasn’t budging. “It ain’t over yet. I’m the fat lady, and I haven’t sung yet. I’m sleeping on the couch.”

  Mike knew better than to protest.

  I pestered Mike every half hour to call JPS and check on the condition of the Garzas. Ben had been rushed into surgery, but Conroy was right. I hadn’t hit any vital organs, though the bullet had nicked his intestine and they took out his appendix while they were in there. He’d have the usual slow recovery from abdominal surgery, but he’d live to stand trial.

  “Trial?”

  “For breaking and entering, attempted murder. Conroy will probably drum up some other charges. Ben’s a juvenile but not for long. He’ll end up in Huntsville or some similar facility. Bella will face the same charges and will go to prison. They’re out of our lives, Kelly.”

  “But why? Who? What?” I sounded like advice given to a rookie newspaper reporter, but there was too much missing from this story. There was someone bigger behind this, someone who paid Ben and Bella to stalk me and probably to kill me. Tom Lattimore must hold the clue, I thought. “Mike, Tom Lattimore never called me back.”

  He shrugged. “Kelly, I was worried about him. But right now my concern is my family. Tom Lattimore can damn well fend for himself.”

  I literally fell into bed about eight, leaving Mom to get the girls to bed and Mike to help himself. I thought I’d sleep for a lifetime.

  Mike’s phone rang in the night. When he answered it with “Shandy,” I felt a cold chill shoot through my body. He mumbled a few things like, “Okay,” “Yeah, we’ll talk tomorrow.” Nothing that revealed what was going on.

  I roused enough to ask, “Mike? What?”

  “Nothing, Kelly. Go back to sleep. You need it.”

  “No,” I said stubbornly. “Tell me what’s happened.”

  Mike knew the tone of voice. “They found Lattimore’s body in an alley on the North Side. Stabbed.”

  “Bella! But no, she couldn’t have done it. She was at our house trying to kill me.” I thought the words would send me into a paroxysm of giggling—someone had actually set out to kill me. Unbelievable. “The goons who beat up Otto.” I knew instinctively that was the answer. Why had I forgotten about those two thugs?

  “Possibly. You’ll have to wait for the ME to announce the time of death, as close as possible, to rule out Bella and Ben. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

  “It’s all mixed up together,” I said, “but we still don’t know why. There’s somebody out there, somebody who still wants me dead.” I shivered and cuddled closer to the protective arm he put around me. “Mike, no big-box store on Magnolia is that important. What’s going on?”

  He stroked my hair and murmured, “Kelly, I don’t know. But we won’t solve it tonight. Go back to sleep.”

  Of course I didn’t. I lay awake all night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Keisha was fixing breakfast while I sat with coffee and stared into space. When my cell phone rang, caller I.D. said John Henry Jackson. What could he want two days before Christmas? “Kelly O’Connell,” I said sort of abruptly.

  “Little lady, I am so glad you’re all right. I read about the attack on you in the newspaper this morning.”

  Well, darn. There was publicity I didn’t need. Who trusts a real estate agent who keeps getting involved in crimes? Keisha was eyeing me sternly, but I blithely ignored her. I thanked John Henry for his concern, assured him I was all right, just scared, and that we were at my mom’s until the police cleared the crime scene tape.

  After I hung up, Keisha demanded,
“Can’t you ever just say thank you, Merry Christmas and goodbye? Why you tellin’ him where we are?”

  I was too tired to argue. “John Henry’s just concerned. He’s a marshmallow. He called me ‘little lady’ again.”

  “Today, I don’t trust nobody.”

  “Wish Mom took the newspaper so I could see the article John Henry mentioned. I’ll go ask Mike to pull it up on the computer.”

  Finally I got a laugh from Keisha. “Your mom don’t take the newspaper ‘cause she says this still isn’t her city and she don’t know the people it talks about.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Get everybody in here for breakfast while you’re at it. These eggs gonna get cold.”

  Mike pulled up the paper and we found a brief mention in the local news note section. It didn’t have much beside what John Henry had told me. Said there been a break-and-enter incident at a residence and then gave our specific address: street and house number. An open invitation to other no-gooders. Mike muttered, “Damn!”

  We mostly stared at each other all morning. My mind was on the thousand things I had to do to get ready for Christmas, but oddly I couldn’t focus on any one. Claire called to announce she had worked out a potluck assignment, so everyone else was bringing dinner to my house on Christmas Day. I wasn’t to cook a thing. I’d have my hands full just wrapping Christmas presents, and I guessed we’d have a tree trimming party whenever. Before New Year’s for sure.

  About noon Conroy knocked on the door. When Keisha opened it, he said, “Boy, do I have news.” He was more animated than I’d ever seen him and couldn’t bring himself to sit still. He paced, while he told us the morning’s discoveries.

  The homicide guys had searched Lattimore’s apartment first thing in the morning. It had already been tossed, during the night, by someone looking for something specific. Pillows and sofa cushions were torn open, pictures yanked off the wall and their backings ripped, the computer gone but the flat-screen television and a bunch of cash was left behind. They even theorized that Tom might have been surprised in his apartment and kidnapped. But they found something important that had been overlooked: a safe deposit box key. Opening it required a warrant to force the bank to let them open it, and they had to work fast, since banks would close early because of the approaching holiday. By ten, they were at the bank, warrant and key in hand, and opened the box.

  “Damndest thing,” Conroy said. “I think your pal,” he directed that at me, “knew he wasn’t long for this world. He printed out a whole confession—implicated…oh, you’ll never guess. John Henry Jackson, our history-minded lawyer, was North Side Properties and also was the brains behind this whole grocery store, which was a front for growing and shipping marijuana. Get it? Wild Things? That temperature-controlled shed was really a growing room. His investors? Non-existent. He wasn’t sharing this cash cow with anyone. He wanted that specific location because of its easy access to trucking routes. Besides, putting an upscale grocery in your neighborhood was a good cover.”

  John Henry! My mind refused to grasp that idea. He hadn’t just called to be nice. He wanted to know what I knew—and I told him enough. I confessed to Conroy, who waved my concern away. “John Henry probably already had the computer in his possession and had read the confession. He’s probably on his way out of town. We’ve got an APB out on him and have notified airports, railroad counters, even the bus depot. We’ll get him.”

  I felt all the air go out of me as I sank into the couch, deflated, angry, confused. No wonder the landmark commission had approved the project—I wondered if they’d even seen it or John Henry had just rubber-stamped it. Such duplicity was beyond me. And what about Robert Lawler? Did he even know his name was used to give respectability to a fictional list of investors? I doubted it.

  Mike and Conroy talked quietly in a corner and then Mike came over to shake my shoulder, jarring me out of my reverie and back into the present.

  “He says we can get back in the house this afternoon. I’ll feel better to be on the premises.” He thought for a minute. “Let’s leave the girls here. At least until I feel sure the house is safe.”

  Keisha approved our plan. “It’s a pretty day. I’ll take the girls—and Miss Cynthia if she wants to go—to the zoo. If that’s okay.”

  Mom declined. “Whoever heard of going to the zoo two days before Christmas? I have too much to do. Besides, it’s December!”

  “Mom, it’s going to be seventy today, a perfect day for the zoo.” I turned to Mike. “You think they’ll be safe?”

  “With Keisha, of course. As Buck said, Jackson is probably trying desperately to get out of town. Hurting you—or us—won’t do him any good now.”

  “Maybe José will drag himself out of bed,” she said. “I’ll go call him. He’s off tonight, has to work Christmas.” She made a face.

  It all worked out. José came to Mom’s and the four of them set off, with plans for dinner at the Grill after the zoo trip. I drove Mike and me to the house, and Mom set about baking Christmas pies—pumpkin and pecan.

  It was strange to go back in the house. Everything was orderly. The window had been replaced, furniture straightened, blood removed from the doorways, hall carpet torn up exposing lovely hardwood floors that I would not re-carpet. The Christmas tree was still in place, undecorated—we had planned to have our own tree-trimming party last night But still it felt…funny.

  “Mike, does it smell different?”

  He sniffed. “No. What do you think you smell?”

  “Uh, dried blood?”

  “That’s your imagination. Get busy and you’ll forget about it. Wrap Christmas presents. Make a grocery list. Do all that stuff you were going to do yesterday. I’m going to check out the guest apartment. I’ll use the ramp in front.”

  At the door, he hesitated, threw me a look of defiance, and shoved his walker aside, picking up the cane the doctor had recently okayed for his use. I went back to the bedroom to dig presents out of the closet—having the girls gone for the day was a blessing.

  I had wrapped two packages—clothes for the girls—when Mike called from the living room, “Kelly, can you come here?” His voice was so tight it grated on my nerves. Something made me wish for my pistol, but the police still had it. And Mike probably was carrying his.

  “Kelly, now!”

  Defenseless, I walked down the hall and found John Henry holding a gun to Mike’s back.

  “He was hiding in the apartment,” Mike said tightly. “I’ve told him there’s nothing to be gained now, but he wants to use us as hostages to negotiate a clean get-away.”

  “Not both of you, just the little lady.” He turned to me, his gun still trained on Mike. “I tried to keep you out of this. But you wouldn’t listen to me, to Bella, probably even to your obliging husband here. Now you’re my ticket to Mexico. You’re going with me. If all goes well, I’ll put you on a plane back to DFW. If not…,” he shrugged. “I’ll do whatever I have to. I’m not going to jail.”

  Appalled, scared, you name it. “You can’t be serious!” I could feel the blood rush to my face and my knees went weak again. Damn! I’d been feeling this way too often in the past couple of days. John Henry, the man I dismissed as a marshmallow, was threatening something unfathomable. Mexico? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. He pointed the gun at me.

  “I assure you, I’m deadly serious…and that’s not a play on words.” His usually laughing eyes had gone steel-cold blue, and he alternated his gaze between intimidating me—it worked!—and keeping an eye on Mike.

  I was desperately searching every corner of my mind for a way out of this.

  “Move,” John barked, holding the gun steadily in my direction. He knew Mike wouldn’t move if I was in danger. “Plane is not pressurized…grab a coat. That’s all, and I’m watching.”

  As I turned to the closet, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of movement on the porch. I dared not react with a sigh of relief or a glance. Thank heaven the curtai
ns were sheer—whoever was out there could look in and see the scene we were in the middle of. Stalling for time seemed my best option.

  “I need time…tell my girls…take some things with me. A toothbrush.”

  “No time. I’ll buy whatever you need when we reach our destination. Come now. We’re through stalling.”

  The first coat I grabbed out of the closet was Mike’s ski jacket—no chance he’d left a gun in the pocket. John Henry’s gun was still pointed at me, and he said, in a jokingly gallant tone, “After you, my dear. I’ll be right behind you. Go out the front door. You may say goodbye to your husband from a distance.”

  I turned to Mike and saw he had turned to me. Our eyes locked, but John Henry couldn’t decipher the message we sent each other—and the prayer for safety for both of us. Who knew what would happen once I went out that door?

  John Henry spoke to Mike over his shoulder, keeping the gun trained on me. “If you value your wife, wait one hour before calling your comrades. We’re taking her car. You’ll find it eventually.” Then, to me, “Open the door, little lady.”

  I opened the door with apprehension, wondering who was outside. The thought came too late that it could be an accomplice of John Henry. But when I took that first step beyond the door, I realized that a sudden norther had hit. My first thought was that the girls would be cold at the zoo. Before I could worry about that, there was a commotion behind me.

  I stood stock still, expecting a bullet in the back. Instead, I felt a sharp stinging pain in my left calf and then wetness. Then I heard Keisha shouting, “Oh my god, you hit Kelly!” Far from being scared or worried about a wound, I wanted to laugh out loud.

  Behind me, John Henry lay on the porch, clutching his right wrist, and José stood over him with a gun. Mike was in the doorway and on the phone. Keisha was on her knees, pulling up my pants leg and shouting, “José, go get some paper towels.”

  “I can’t,” he replied calmly. “I’m holding the gun on our friend here.”