Freezer Burn: A Maggie Mercer Mystery

by Jill Behe

“Good to know. Listen.” He made me look at him. “It’s just a flesh wound. Maybe a bit worse, but not much. The bullet hit his upper arm, shoulder area. As I said, nothing real serious. Not life-threatening, at any rate. Okay? But here’s my theory. You’re not going to like it. It’s gonna scare you.” He pulled me tight. “Shit. It scares me. And we’re going to talk about it more, later. Right now, just the bare facts. Okay?”

  I nodded against his shoulder.

  “I believe—with all my heart—that he saved your life. If he hadn’t run up behind you, that bullet would have hit you in the middle of your back. It may not have killed you, but might have crippled, or seriously maimed you.”

  Tears were leaking, but I nodded, holding tight to this man who loved me, wanting to release the sobs that were clogging my brain, my lungs, my heart. Somebody wanted to hurt me that badly. Some evil irresponsible asshole took a shot at me, and my baby got hit because he was in the way.

  Rage warred with the terror.

  I wanted to find the bastard and beat him senseless, but was also scared spitless that I was a target, and hyper-anxious for my injured son.

  My hand reached out and grabbed Dawson by the front of his parka, knowing he was only inches away. He needed reassurance, too.

  He held fast, confirming my intuition. “Mom?” His voice wasn’t steady either. “What’s going on? Somebody shot Gage?”

  Wyatt still had a tight grip on me.

  I turned my head so I could look my youngest in the eye. “Yes, baby. Somebody shot Gage. I don’t know what’s going on, sweetie. Not, yet. Believe me, though, we’re going to find out. Gage is going to be okay. Wyatt says it’s not real serious. It’s major to us, because he’s ours and he’s hurt. But he’s not going to die.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Right, Wyatt?”

  “Right. Might be in a sling for a week or so, but that’s it. Girls’ll be swarming all over him, wanting to wait on him hand and foot.”

  A sniff from Dawson. “Huh.” Far from solid, but stronger. “He’ll milk that for all it’s worth.”

  Wyatt loosened his hold, but didn’t let me get too far out of his reach.

  I grabbed Dawson’s hand. “Come on, kid. Let’s go keep your brother company, and make sure he stays warm until the ambulance gets here.” I looked up at Wyatt, laying my other hand over his heart. “Thank you. I know we need to have a talk later, but I also need to thank you later, too.”

  “I won’t forget.” He leaned down and kissed me, hard.

  * * *

  NOT WANTING to leave his prized truck at the lake, Gage reluctantly agreed that Wyatt could drive it back. Dawson went with him. I rode in the ambulance, Gage’s hand wrapped in mine. Ricky and Lancy met us at the hospital.

  The ER doctor saved the bullet for Wyatt, sewed up my son’s arm, and gave him a sling to wear for a week.

  “Come back in seven days and I’ll take those stitches out. We’ll talk then about whether you’ll need any physical therapy.”

  The boys stayed the night at my house.

  Gage went right to his old room to lie down, exhausted by the trauma, and fuzz-headed from the pain-killers. Dawson, bottling his emotions until he could deal with them—as usual—lounged on the sofa in the den, keeping his mind otherwise occupied by intermittently watching a hockey game and playing Mortal Combat on the PS3.

  Wyatt and I postponed our conversation.

  I wasn’t looking forward to said talk because I knew, more or less, what he was going to say.

  Now, much more than from the phone calls, I was terrified. Wracking my brain for a possible suspect wasn’t producing any results, either, except to give me a massive headache, on top of the one from all the … events of the day.

  CHAPTER 43

  MONDAY MORNING

  “WYATT, do you still have that business card Miss Lavender gave you?”

  “The one from Jarrod Sorenson? Yeah. Why?”

  “Well, the forensic investigator has been and gone again. Shouldn’t we notify Sybil’s brothers? I thought I’d call and invite them to come in so I … you, could tell them about it.”

  The man lounged in his chair. “Could just tell them over the phone, ya know.”

  “True, but aren’t they suspects in the plot to kidnap one of our pint-sized citizens?”

  “They are.”

  “Then what better opportunity to kill two crows with one slingshot? Having them come here we … you, could pump them for info about everything.”

  He laughed. “Set it up for 10 tomorrow.” He slid the card across the desk. “Don’t give up what’s in your hand right away.”

  “Please. I’ve played poker before. I may not be real good at it, but I do know the strategy.”

  “Such modesty.” He nodded. “I’ve been in games with you, remember?”

  “I do. Yes. I remember beating you.”

  Wyatt cleared his throat. “Let me know when they confirm.”

  I chuckled all the way out to my desk. He’d lost a hundred bucks to me in that game.

  Just before noon, I let him know the brothers would be here in the morning. Wyatt didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell him how I’d gotten them to agree.

  * * *

  WYATT HAD JUST CARRIED me three blocks and set me, gently, on my desk chair. It was late in the afternoon, already getting dark.

  He unzipped my coat and shrugged it off me, careful not to jar anything. He never said a word, but I felt the worry on him in the tenderness. Panic was beaten down by a steel will that brooked no disobedience. But he wasn’t going to let anyone leave the room until he knew the whole story.

  I eased into the most comfortable position possible, under the circumstances—which wasn’t all that comfy—and waited.

  Breath bated.

  The man oozes intimidation on the best of occasions, right now though, he was doing his best not to, and failing.

  He sat on the corner of my desk (I figured so as not to be very far away from me), swinging his leg and studying the three 10-year-olds who’d come to my rescue, were worried about me, and leery of Wyatt. They huddled together on the bench against the wall, arms squashing their outside gear against their chests like shields.

  They’d left their snow saucers outside the door, but there were puddles on the floor from the melt off their boots.

  “You boys haven’t been up to no-good, have you?”

  After a hard swallow, Luke answered. “Oh, no, Chief Madison, sir. We’re, uh, we’re up … uh, to good.”

  The other two nodded in unison, a sure sign of guilt in my experience. And it was my fault. Perhaps my judgment had been skewed, and I shouldn’t have persuaded those poor boys to swear they wouldn’t tell what had really happened.

  Oh, for Heaven’s sake. Okay, yes. It was definitely wrong of me to swear them to secrecy, but I couldn’t tell Wyatt what really happened. He’d yell, or worse.

  What? NO. He would never hit me – not under any circumstances. But after yesterday’s traumatic event, I didn’t want to deal with the furious grizzly he’d become when he found out.

  You’re right. It is inevitable. And when it happens, it will be worse. Probably.

  Oh please, be quiet.

  “We wouldn’t dare be up to no good, sir.” Josh elbowed Blake. “Right?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah. Right.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Our dads would scrape the skin right off our bones if we got into….” Luke hesitated, eyeing his cohorts. “Well, if we got into the kind of trouble like you’re talking about, Chief Madison.”

  “We’re just real worried about Miss Maggie.”

  “Uh huh. I see. Well, then, you boys best get home. It’s getting dark. And don’t worry, I’ll be taking good care of Miss Maggie. She’ll be just fine.”

  Mentally, I breathed a sigh of relief. Wyatt sounded mollified by their answers, so he wouldn’t be probing any deeper into why they’d had to come to my aid.

  “Yes,
sir, Sir.” Blake stood quickly.

  I addressed the boys. “Thank you, again, for helping me out today. If you hadn’t come along when you did, I’d probably still be laying there.”

  “We’re glad we came along, too, Miss Maggie.” Blake came to stand at the side of my chair.

  Josh was right behind him. “We weren’t going to let anything happen to you. What if he’d come back?”

  I closed my eyes and silently groaned.

  “What?” Wyatt’s head swiveled in my direction. “Did I miss something?”

  Oh, crud.

  The guilty looks were back, eleven-fold.

  Shoot.

  Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

  “S-sorry, sir.” Josh sent me a look, and shrugged. “We promised.”

  I had to admire their loyalty, but couldn’t justify the brow-beating Wyatt was getting ready to unleash on them. “I asked them not to tell you exactly why I ended up flat on my back on the sidewalk. Boys, I do appreciate your help, but it’s time for you to get home. I’ll explain everything to Chief Madison.”

  They grabbed their coats, but Wyatt stood, and all activity halted. There was an audible intake of breath from all three of the boys, simultaneously.

  I was holding mine, too.

  “JUST a minute. I do want to hear what happened, but I want to hear it from you three first.” He pointed at the boys. “Then I’ll drive you home in the police cruiser. How does that sound?”

  Six eyes … scared eyes … turned to me. I closed mine, again, and counted to 20 by threes before nodding. “It’s all right. Go ahead.”

  I shifted in the chair. My hip was giving me fits, and my elbow, feeling three times bigger than it should, pulsed with pain. There were twinges in other areas, too, but not as severe. If it all hurt this bad now, and it takes 24-hours for the real pain to surface, I was in big trouble.

  Wyatt wasn’t going to be happy with me after the boys blurted out everything. And knowing Josh Jones’s penchant for elaboration, I had no doubt we were in for a Three Musketeers-type tale of adventure.

  The man pulled up a chair, sat, folded his arms, crossed one ankle over a knee, and waited.

  The trio, after removing their coats again, dropped to the floor in front of him, sitting Indian-style.

  “Well, sir. We’d been over to Miller’s Pond,” Blake began. “There’s that big hill, and it’s perfect for slidin’.”

  Luke nodded at his buddies. “Yeah, and nobody yells at us for messing up their yard, or has to tell us to get out of the road.”

  “Right.”

  “We were, um, we got hungry and decided to head for the diner. My Gram lets us stow our gear and stuff on the back porch.”

  “That’s only because you’re related, Blake.”

  “Shut up, Josh.” Blake glared, but continued. “We were about a block away when we saw Miss Maggie coming towards us and we waved to each other. She got to the corner before we did, and stopped to look both ways. Even though we weren’t close enough to see around the corner, we didn’t hear any cars or nuthin coming.”

  “She started to cross, then.” Luke was looking at me, nervously winding his scarf around and around his hands. “That’s when I heard a big truck start up. One of those ginormous ones, ya know?”

  “Yeah. Miz Mercer was going kinda slow and careful, cuz it’s real slick at that intersection.”

  Wyatt nodded.

  “You were carrying something, too. Weren’t you Miz Mercer?”

  “Yes, Luke, I was.” That’s right, I’d just come from Annetta’s. I’d forgotten all about it in the ensuing excitement.

  Wyatt turned his head to eyeball me. “What was it, Maggie?”

  “Coconut cream pie.” Wonder where it ended up.

  We exchanged a meaningful look. The replacement pie. His mother had eaten the last piece just … wow, just three days ago.

  With a sigh of (probably) regret, he refocused his attention. “What happened next?”

  Josh’s face lit up, and I rolled my eyes. “It was just like in the movies. ’Ceptin this was real, and right in front of us.”

  Blake took over, using his hands and body to embellish the illustration. “This huge black 4X4 comes barreling down the street—”

  “Black?” Luke shot to his feet. “It wasn’t black. It was green, dark green.”

  Josh stood, too, shaking his head. “Nuh uh. It was dark blue.”

  Wyatt cleared his throat.

  The bickering stopped and the boys sank to the floor again.

  “Anyways. It was massive.”

  “Not like a monster truck, or nuthin, though.”

  “No, not that big. It was a Ford F250.”

  “Nah. A big Chevy Silverado.”

  “Uh uh. A Dodge Ram.”

  Josh punched Blake’s arm. “Not a Ram, dork. Officer Anderson drives a Ram. It wasn’t nuthin like it.”

  Blake rubbed his arm, and frowned at his friend.

  Luke, ever the mediator, took the middle ground. “Well, yeah, it was kinda-sorta like it, but it wasn’t a Ram.”

  “Okay.” Wyatt propped a foot over a knee. “It was a dark-colored full-size 4X4. Diesel?”

  Three heads nodded with enthusiasm.

  “Yeah, it was smelly.”

  “And it was real loud and made that chugging sound.”

  Like that wouldn’t be hard to find. Only 40-percent of the population had a truck like that, though we could eliminate all the light-colored ones. Yeah, that would take it down to, a mere 35-percent.

  “Got it. Then what?”

  “We yelled for Miz Mercer to stop.”

  “Yeah, but she was already in the road, and ’sides that, she couldn’t hear us over that screamin’ engine.”

  “So we started running towards her.”

  “She saw the truck then, and turned around to get back to the sidewalk, cuz that crazy bast—um, driver wasn’t slowing down. He was slidin’ all over the road, too.”

  Wyatt straightened. “It was aimed at Mag— I mean, Miz Mercer?”

  The boys had a short intense discussion, nodding and gesturing among themselves.

  Luke’s head popped above the bent ones still whispering. “We think so. Seemed like it, anyways.”

  Wyatt turned to me, again. I knew what that glare meant, and tried to look innocent and nonchalant.

  He turned back to the boys, but he wasn’t going to let this pass.

  I sighed, on the inside.

  “And?”

  “Well, Josh got to the curb before we did.”

  The boy nodded and started in. “I saw the truck was almost to her. I figured she’d make it, but that stupid … guy, gunned it, and jerked the wheel to the left. On purpose seemed like. He was headed right at her for sure then.”

  “That’s when—”

  “What?” Wyatt’s body tensed. “That’s when, what?”

  CHAPTER 44

  ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, IT HURTS LESS

  BLAKE GAVE ME AN APOLOGETIC SHRUG. “That’s when the truck…. Well, it didn’t hit her. Not exactly. Just sorta kissed her, um, backside, when it went by.”

  “We all thought—cuz we talked about it—that it was mostly, with all the ice and her hurryin’, that she just slipped, and it caught her coat, or something.”

  “Yeah. That’s prolly what happened, and the, uh, wind from the truck going by so fast and so close, and it bein’ real slippery, that’s why she fell.”

  I cringed. Wyatt didn’t look at me, but I felt impelled to explain … protest, because I was pretty sure he was seriously irate at this point. Not at me, necessarily, but…. “It didn’t do anything but brush the back of my coat. I lost my balance because I was trying to hurry, and yes, it was very slick. Someone needs to do a better job salting those corners.”

  “She went down real hard, kinda sideways on her, um….” He patted his left hip-cheek. “And pinged her elbow on the streetlight post.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot, guys.” They were so not helping
.

  “Sorry, Miss Maggie.”

  “Not your fault, Blake.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Almost, sir.”

  “The guy in the truck musta heard us yelling, or seen us waving our arms around, cuz he hightailed it down the street.”

  “You’re sure it was a guy, a man, driving?”

  Blake frowned. “Pretty sure.”

  “Yeah. Well, we weren’t really payin’ much attention to who was driving, but he looked kinda big.”

  “And he was sorta hunched over the steering wheel. Like he was—”

  “Like he was what, Luke?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe like he was concentrating?”

  “Concentrating?”

  The boy shrugged. “Maybe so he didn’t hit any cars, or maybe to….” He gave me a helpless look. “…to make sure he hit Miss Maggie.”

  The other two didn’t give Wyatt a chance to comment on that one.

  Blake put in his two cents. “I thought for sure he was gonna run into one of the cars parked along the street there, but he didn’t.”

  Josh laughed, sort of. “Yeah. He was skidding all over the road, like he’d never driven that big a truck before. He never did hit nuthin, but it was, like, a miracle he that didn’t.”

  “Miz Mercer was laying there moaning. We were scared that we’d made a mistake and he really had hit her.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. She got hurt when she fell.”

  “She didn’t tell you to say that, did she?”

  Their eyes went wide.

  I squinted at the back of his head.

  “Oh, no, sir. We wouldn’t lie to you. ’Specially not about that.”

  “Lyin’s a sin, my dad always says.”

  “Your dad’s a minister, for Pete’s sake. Course he’d say that.”

  “Shut up, Josh.”

  I nodded. “Your father’s right, Luke.”

  Blake continued. “After we made sure it was safe to cross the road, we went over to see how we could help Miss Maggie.”

  “She was moaning, you said?”

  “Yeah, well, she’d hit the ice pretty hard. We saw her go down. It wasn’t pretty.”

  I laughed, but it wasn’t funny.