Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Jerusha Jones

  As usual, Walt was right, with his lovely, euphemistically chosen words designed not to worry our precious bargaining chip further. I shifted her until we were both sitting upright, then I pulled my tote bag out from under the seat and found the appropriate phone.

  It was a difficult call to make. But, not only is Des a terrific sheriff, he’s also a solid, class-act listener.

  “Where are you now?” was the only question he asked.

  “Almost home.”

  “You will stay at Mayfield until you see the whites of my eyes.” A startlingly specific command, not to be argued with, and then dead air because Des had hung up.

  I almost chuckled. There was nothing I wanted more.

  oOo

  Walt drove straight to the bunkhouse. Which looked as though it was hosting a hillbilly convention the way old beater vehicles were parked at odd angles in front of it. Bertha’s headlight beams raked across the scene, causing the only car that appeared utterly out of place to sparkle in the uneven light. Clarice’s freshly waxed and buffed silver Subaru station wagon.

  Clarice burst through the low lintelled doorway, followed closely by Gus, Loretta, Tarq, and a surge of boys.

  What a melee. Orders were barked in the darkness—mostly by Clarice—we were hugged breathless, asked a myriad of questions, chirping and chattering, swarming around. I was suddenly very lightheaded, but Loretta was holding me up—scolding and jubilant at the same time, punctuating her comments with squeezes. I hardly heard her.

  Emmie and I were trundled into the Subaru, and Clarice gunned her car over the track to the mansion, apparently not having taken any lessons from her recent vehicular altercation near Mayfield’s gate.

  My teeth rattled against each other. “It’s okay,” I muttered. “We’re all okay.”

  “You’re a sight, girl. And what’s that?” Clarice pulled a hand from where it really needed to be on the steering wheel and flipped it toward the remaining duct tape wadded in Emmie’s hair.

  I tightened my grip on Emmie to ward against the violent jostling—Clarice was hitting every single pothole—and braced a foot on the dashboard. “We saved that for you. I figured you’d know what to do with it.”

  Clarice slammed on the brakes outside the mansion and hustled us through the kitchen and up the stairs to our living area. I was assigned to the bathroom first and had the opportunity to see what Clarice was so upset about.

  Except for the wobbly, disbelieving smile and scar on my upper lip, I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. Every square inch of exposed skin was covered in little cuts. Streaks of mud and chalky dust, dried droplets of blood. The elbow of my jacket was torn out.

  And I hurt. All over. As I peeled off my clothes, I learned why. Deep red bruises and swollen knots which covered my body were rapidly darkening to purplish-black. I looked as though I’d been tumbled in the dryer with a dozen tennis balls.

  Hot water helped. I stood under the pelting stream for as long as I dared. Emmie was next, and I wanted to save enough hot water for her.

  I cinched Skip’s robe around my middle and padded into the hall where Clarice and Emmie were waiting.

  “There’s a powwow in the kitchen. You’d better get down there.” Clarice’s hand was resting protectively on Emmie’s head. And it appeared that her solution to the duct tape problem had been scissors. Emmie now had a sweet pixie haircut.

  I knelt in front of my little girl and peered deep into her eyes.

  Her somber silence was back. That dark place she retreated to.

  “Sweetheart,” I murmured, and a tear broke loose from those gorgeous golden-brown eyes. “I love you. I’m so sorry this happened.”

  She nodded and clung to me.

  It’s incredibly and disturbingly humbling—the trust of a child. I wanted to weep for the joy and the terror of it. But I just rubbed her back and held her. I couldn’t possibly do that enough.

  “We’ll give it a few days. Then you can go back to school. Okay?” I murmured. “With your friends and your studies. Just like normal.”

  “Will he go to jail?” she whispered. “That man?”

  “Yes.” I’d never been so sure of a promise in my life.

  oOo

  Clarice hadn’t been exaggerating about the powwow. Every ladder-back chair in the kitchen was occupied, and more men—many in uniform—were leaning against the counters. I’d dressed as quickly as I possibly could, but I was still late to the party. I nodded to Sergeant Pettigrew as I eased in beside him in the back row.

  The FBI contingent, Matt and Violet, sat at the table. Matt had assembled the files he’d brought earlier into a neat stack and had his hands folded across the top. I supposed he didn’t consider them suitable reading for the general public.

  Des was running the briefing. “We’ve put up road blocks on the major county roads, and state patrol is watching the highways, but these two men—Shane Bigelow and Rod Kliever—know the county well. They’re lifelong residents. So they’re either hiding or they’re gone. And we can be sure they’re working for someone else in all this.”

  I’d only given Des the bare-bones version of events during my call from Bertha. Consequently, he didn’t know that Bigelow had named both Squeaky and my Numero Siete, Dirk Whelan, as suspects farther up the chain of command. But Des is a smart guy, and he’d helped clean up too many of my shenanigans to not assume mob ties at this point.

  I’d figured the FBI would want dibs on the upper echelon, and I was also fairly certain my Numero Siete wasn’t personally in the area. He’d used his minions to try to trap me—assuming, perhaps correctly, that distance is a helpful factor when attempting to deny culpability. Unless those minions squealed when Des caught them.

  From the other side of the room, Tarq squinted at me. His skin was sickly yellow under the caged hanging lamps. The light fixtures were an incongruity, as though the mansion’s architect hadn’t been able to decide if the residents should bake bread or shoot basketballs in this room, or if somehow cooking for a few hundred people was a contact sport.

  But Tarq’s glare was a question. I nodded.

  He cleared his throat and rose, gripping the back of his chair with both hands for support. “There’s one other thing. And this will be of particular interest to the FBI.”

  Matt’s eyes widened, and he shifted in his seat for a better view. Tarq had everyone’s rapt attention.

  “Over forty years ago a man using the name Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Airlines plane and demanded a ransom of $200,000. He reportedly parachuted from the plane in this general area. The serial numbers on those bills were recorded, isn’t that correct?”

  I tried to hold back a grin and imagined Tarq’s glory days arguing cases in front of a jury. He still had quite a presence.

  It was Matt’s turn to clear his throat. “That’s correct.”

  The Cooper case was legend in the FBI ranks—the only domestic aircraft hijacking still unsolved. And even though Matt had probably been a babe in arms when Cooper had pulled the stunt, his face had narrowed down to a dim glower. Beside him, Violet snorted derisively.

  “Well, you need to pull out that list and notify retail establishments from the Canadian border to Tijuana. Because those bills are back in play. And it’s likely that it will be our kidnappers or their associates spending them. That’s all I can tell you.” Tarq sank back into his chair. He crossed his arms over his middle and returned Matt’s challenging stare. Client confidentiality at its finest.

  “I can tell you a few other things,” I blurted. I didn’t want Matt to have a chance to ask exactly how much money I’d given the kidnappers or where the balance had come from. “Rod Kliever’s the one who abducted Emmie, under orders though, as Des mentioned.” I tipped my head and gave Des a little smile.

  “Kliever has a perfect set of Emmie’s teeth marks on his left forearm. He also has a broken nose and major bruising to his face. And,” I drew a deep breath and hoped Walt wouldn’t get into trouble for
his quick thinking and timely rescue, “his right wrist has been slashed, deeply. He will have to seek medical attention in the near future if he hasn’t already.” I wasn’t going to reveal who was responsible for which of Kliever’s injuries unless I was forced to.

  Except for Emmie’s efforts, of course—I was proud of my girl.

  Sergeant Pettigrew was already scrolling through the contact list on his phone. He punched the number for an urgent care clinic in Longview then sidled through the throng to let himself out. One of the benefits of a rural county—not too many options for after-hours medical treatment.

  His movement was like the start of an avalanche. A few people trickled outside in his wake, then more and more. With a remarkable economy of words, Des assigned tasks and deputies were dispatched, streaming out into the night. Kidnapping a child is a serious crime, guaranteed to bring a no-holds-barred response from all law enforcement agencies, and I slumped against the counter with relief.

  In a way, Bigelow and Kliever had been incredibly stupid to resort to taking Emmie. Which convinced me more than ever that they’d been obeying orders, perhaps even reluctantly, albeit ruthlessly. And then Kliever had made the mistake of checking Emmie’s storeroom first. Maybe they’d planned to move her. Regardless, I wasn’t going to complain about the sequence of events.

  If anything—any one little thing—had gone differently—

  I crept over to a newly-empty chair and fell into it, pressed my fingertips against my eyelids.

  “The what-ifs will kill you.” Tarq’s gravelly voice was accompanied by a ropy arm squeezed around my shoulders. Through the layers of fabric between his arm and my back, I could feel how emaciated his muscles were, how brittle his bones. “Let’s talk about what-nexts.”

  But Matt wasn’t ready to move on yet. “We rescue kids. It’s what we do, Nora. One of the FBI’s specialties—a top priority.” His words were deathly quiet, measured, fired like bullets from across the table, and I knew he was trying not to explode at me.

  I held his gaze. “I know. But it’s what we do, too—Walt and I. Usually in different contexts, but this time—she’s mine, my little girl. I’m all she has,” I finished in a whisper.

  But then I gulped and added, “If we’d waited for you to assemble an extraction team, what would have happened? If she was your child, would you have had the patience for that?”

  Matt stared for a long time, his hazel eyes hard, probing, his jaw muscles clenched. Finally, he sighed and slid the files across the table to me.

  Violet’s mouth snapped open, and I flinched, expecting her to launch the verbal barrage that Matt had graciously refrained from. But the ringing of Matt’s phone drew her up short.

  “Yeah.” Matt bent his head, phone angled against his ear, listening while we all watched him. Then he turned to me, nodding slowly. “We’re on our way.”

  I rose, ready—for what, I knew not.

  But Matt clicked off the call and shook his head. “Not you. You’re needed here, and you have work to do.” He tapped the files. “Kliever’s been arrested. In Tacoma. He tried to bribe a nurse, who was on her smoke break behind the hospital, to stitch him up. We’ll find out how much he’s willing to spill.”

  Violet scraped back her chair, adjusted the wad at her narrow waist that had to be a handgun holstered under her body-hugging tunic sweater, skewered me with a final resentful glare, and followed Matt out.

  I couldn’t thank Tarq and Loretta enough, but I wasn’t allowed to get a word in edgewise as I escorted them outside to their pickup.

  Loretta latched onto my arm. “We’re here for Emmie too. Make sure she knows that. You’re not alone in this.”

  I was immediately flooded with remorse. I never meant for my self-defense explanation to Matt to be interpreted as determination to exclude Skip’s mother from a relationship with the girl who might be her only grandchild.

  But I needn’t have worried.

  “You’re all I have left.” Loretta chucked me under the chin. “You and Emmie. Next time—God forbid there is one—I’m going with you, and I will stick a knife in the guy’s balls—eyeballs or otherwise. To think I delivered cinnamon rolls to that man.”

  Tarq choked and had to clear his throat again—a phlegm-rattling multi-harrumpher that I was sure masked his chortles.

  I enveloped Loretta in a hug. “You’re on,” I whispered. “We were far too civilized.”

  Tarq creaked his body into the passenger seat as though he was following a laborious, step-by-step set of instructions. I stood lamely beside his open door, debating whether offering help would be considerate or patronizing.

  But Tarq had other things on his mind. “I assume your Good Delivery bars are still in the storage unit? I’ll get ahold of my contact and start the process for converting another one.”

  “Better make it two,” I said. “Just in case. And I want to repay Dwayne.”

  “Nope,” Tarq growled. “I’m under strict orders. The money was to be used for exactly this kind of situation and not restored. It was useless otherwise, as he’s known for forty years. He was never going to rejoin conventional society. Not in his nature.”

  “Long time to lug that loot around.”

  “He’s a stubborn old goat.”

  That description could apply to several people I knew. And for the most part, they were my favorite people.

  I latched Tarq’s door closed and waved until their taillights faded.

  CHAPTER 17

  Back in the kitchen, after locking the door and wedging a chair under the handle, I called Walt.

  “Hey there.” He sounded subdued, exhausted. He was the only parent figure available for twenty-two boys—the rock in their lives. I didn’t know how he did it. Obviously, I was having difficulty being a rock for one.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Normal feels pretty good when you get a glimpse of worse.”

  “The boys?”

  “A little scared underneath all the questions, but they’re recovering. Several of them, at least for the moment, have decided to become police officers when they grow up. Brimming with testosterone and bravado, practice posturing. Lots of plans about what to do if something like this happens again. It’s a male thing.” Walt chuckled. “Good thing you girls have your own quarters, away from the hubbub.”

  I eased into a chair, curled my arms on the tabletop and rested my head on them, the phone still pressed to my ear. I adored the sound of Walt’s voice—so even-keeled and calm. It had the same effect on my psyche as a Louis Armstrong lullaby.

  “It’s not so different over here,” I said. “Except the wild ideas aren’t limited to the lone youngster. I was thinking about martial arts.” I closed my eyes, soothed by Walt’s even breathing, and leaned into the conversation. “Emmie did great today. But it might be a good idea to add to her skill set. And mine. And the boys’ too. For self-defense, and offense if needed. Do you think they would like that?”

  “No question. The high school wrestling coach moonlights as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Krav Maga instructor. I’ll talk to him about coming out here for group training sessions.” I could hear the smile in Walt’s voice. “We might regret this. Have you ever read The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry?”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “A million times over, thank you. For everything. For being there, for all you did today. For all you do, all the time.”

  Walt was so quiet, I wondered if he’d heard me.

  But then he rumbled, “Always.”

  And I knew, in spite of everything, that I would sleep well tonight.

  oOo

  Sleep would come later, however. I had more pressing matters to attend to.

  I tiptoed into Emmie’s room to relieve Clarice of sentry duty. She was seated beside the bed, her hand resting lightly on Emmie’s back. Emmie was curled around a pillow like a potato bug, a bump under the blankets.

  I raised my eyebrows in question.

  “About half an ho
ur ago,” Clarice answered. “We had a long talk about why people do bad things. Can’t say I enlightened her much. Six years old and she already knows all about the depths of human depravity.” She tipped her head toward the files in my arms. “Want coffee?”

  “I’m still jittery from the multiple adrenaline surges I had today.”

  “You ever think this lifestyle isn’t fabulous for your health?” Clarice pushed her palms into her thighs and slowly rose from her seat.

  “Would you rather be sitting in a posh office, making travel arrangements and reviewing grant applications?” I countered.

  “Don’t be daft,” Clarice muttered. But she gave me an understanding pat on the arm as she passed by.

  I angled the shade of the bedside lamp and settled into the pool of yellow light it cast on the floor with my homework spread out around me.

  Matt had really come through. And I mean in a big way. My eyeballs about popped out of my head with all the information I gleaned—and that was just from the first file I opened. And then my brain turned into an ant hill of divergent trails, all throbbing with little couriers zipping data bits this way and that. There was an overwhelming amount of intelligence to process.

  I scribbled notes like crazy. The old-fashionedness of the method was killing me, but I got a bunch of interesting boxes and arrows into sequence on my notepad, started exploring the possibility of relationships between the people whose names were on the file labels. I ended up laying the files out in two separate family tree structures under the two Numeros—Cuatro (Martin Zimmermann) and Siete (Dirk Whelan).

  I didn’t have Whelan’s dossier—hadn’t known he was involved when I’d requested the files—but I used a blank page to hold his spot at the top of the Numero Siete chain. Bigelow had made the connection between himself, Squeaky and Whelan abundantly clear, so I was confident in the arrangement.