Dan’s cousin continued with her side of the story. “When you told Nelson this morning that you could get your hands on Ghost Orchid seeds, he called me immediately. He said he’d decided this was the time for him to contact Alice, let her know he had a source for illegal plants.”
“‘We can kill two birds with one stone,’ is what I told her,” Nelson said, giving me an apologetic shrug.
“I didn’t object,” Carol added. “He took Alice to lunch and she took the bait. However, after hearing from Nelson, I now wondered if I’d made a mistake about you, so I called Dan.”
“Fortunately,” Dan said, “she phoned right after you told me about your plan to catch a thief. Putting two and two together wasn’t difficult.”
Carol nodded. “And Dan and I agreed maybe this would work out, since it was an amateur operation and we couldn’t be accused of entrapment. We just came along for the ride.”
“You never mentioned your conversation with Dan,” Nelson said, his tone almost accusatory. “Until a few minutes ago, I thought Sam was guilty.”
“I know, and I sincerely apologize,” Carol said, “but I couldn’t put myself in the position of influencing your actions. Besides, you’d done such a good sleuthing job and I appreciated your willingness to wear a wire for us. We picked up the whole conversation.” She smiled at Nelson and then at Dan, “I believe we have two good undercover operatives here, what do you think?”
Before Dan could answer and embarrass me further, I jabbed an elbow into his side. “And you never let on to me, either.”
“I apologize, as well,” he said, grinning, “but I was having too much fun.”
“At my expense.”
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He hugged me tighter and I wondered what he had in mind. Whatever it was, I planned to milk it.
Chapter 64
After the surprising collar of Alice Pickett instead of Nelson Farthington, Dan followed me back to my house for a nightcap. I appreciated the escort home because I was a little nervous about the possibility of quirky headlights showing up behind me at some point along the way.
Fortunately, nothing out of the ordinary happened, which gave me time to put my thoughts in order. I began by debating with myself about Dan spending the night. I tossed around various scenarios in my mind, finally deciding not to worry about it—whatever happened, happened.
The more pressing matter at this point, had to do with the identity of Alice Pickett’s quirky headlights boyfriend, whom I knew to be an attempted murderer, despite the sheriff’s apparent doubts. I’d already experienced the guy driving his weaponized pickup truck, and I worried about what he might do when he learned about my involvement in Alice’s arrest.
In the excitement surrounding the takedown of Alice, I’d never thought to mention her boyfriend to Carol. Once we got home, I’d ask Dan whether he’d told her, since as far as I knew, the sheriff had made no arrest.
On the other hand, maybe it was a moot point since Alice Pickett would be anxious for a fast plea deal. Learning the identity of the race car driver wannabe who ran Jodie and me off the road should be a piece of cake for Chestnut City’s crack sheriff’s department. I wondered whose name would surface now that Nelson Farthington was in the clear—Winston Mooney or someone else? My money was still riding on Mooney.
Once Dan and I arrived home, I dumped my bag on the coffee table and pointed Dan to the kitchen. “There’s beer, and a few new bottles of wine,” I told him. “No hard liquor because I couldn’t mix a drink if my life depended on it.”
“Wine it is,” he said.
I heard water running in the kitchen sink. “Towels are in the drawer to the right of the sink.”
“I remember. Have a seat and relax. I’ll bring you a drink if you tell me what you want.”
“I’ll have a glass of Merlot from the box on the counter.”
“Sounds good to me, too.”
At this point, neither of us would have won a prize for stimulating conversation, but sometimes conversation only gets in the way.
“Sheriff wants to know if you’ll consider coming to work for him,” Dan said, handing me a glass of wine. “But I told him he couldn’t afford you.”
“What did he say?”
I could swear Dan blushed. “He asked whether I could afford you.”
I leaned over and kissed him. “Not a worry. I’m self-supporting.”
From that point on, we relaxed and enjoyed each other. Dan played some dance music over his smart phone and we slow danced around the furniture in my living room. I tried to remember the last time I’d danced with a man, but the thought brought back images of my husband, so I brushed away the memories.
As for the rest of the evening, suffice it to say Dan did stay over, and I happily fell asleep in his arms. My mattress never felt so good.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Dan shook me awake and whispered in my ear. “I think someone’s in your house.”
I thought my heart would stop. I sat up and listened. “The kitchen door,” I whispered.
“Go hide in the closet,” he told me.
I barely made a sound as I slipped into my narrow closet, leaving the door open a crack. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see Dan flattened against the wall to the left of my open bedroom door, one arm raised over his head. He held something in his hand, but I couldn’t make it out.
We both must have heard the floorboard creak at the same time, because I saw Dan’s body tense. I felt around in the closet for something hard in case Dan needed help subduing the intruder prowling through my house. Whoever it was, I hoped they had sense enough to stay out of my bedroom, take whatever cheesy valuables they thought might earn them a couple of bucks at Saturday’s flea market, and leave the same way they came in.
Another squeaky floorboard and I prayed there weren’t two people and they weren’t packing heat. That was the last prayer I had time for because what happened next terrified me. A dark shadow appeared in my bedroom doorway, stopped for an instant mid-threshold then carefully tiptoed forward. His second mistake. The first being to enter my house illegally on the only night in all my years of residency in which I had male protection, and an armed officer of the law, at that.
The sound of a heavy metal object crashing into a human skull is not as deafening as you might expect. Bone is a relatively porous substance and as such, protects the gray matter underneath—assuming there is some underneath, which in the case of my intruder was arguable—by cushioning the blow.
If this were a movie, I thought, the lowlife whose head Dan smashed would be lying flat out, unconscious, and barely breathing from the blow to his addled brain, but this wasn’t a movie, and real life is messy.
Chapter 65
The intruder in my bedroom stumbled forward and delivered more four-letter words in a single breath than I’d heard in a lifetime. He twisted around, arms flailing, but to no avail.
Dan grabbed his right arm and yanked it behind his back, giving rise to an agonizing scream on the part of the yet to be identified human male form now writhing on my bedroom floor with Dan’s knees in the middle of his back. I did my part by flipping on the light.
I don’t know about most people, but I hate ceiling lights and I barely ever use the one in my bedroom, but at least the bulbs weren’t burned out. Something to be grateful for in the midst of chaos. By now, Dan had the man down and was shouting at him to stop squirming or he’d break both his arms. I realized this was the first time I’d ever heard Dan raise his voice. Considering the circumstances, I found it comforting.
“Sam, call 911 and get me some rope or a scarf or something.”
“Sure.” I reached over to the bedside table and grabbed Dan’s cell phone, pushing the three numbers with trembling fingers. I rattled off my address for the operator along with a brief summary of the problem, ending with, “Please hurry.”
“I said lie still,” Dan growled, “or I’ll do more than break your arms. Sam, t
he rope.”
I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a ball of heavy brown twine and a pair of scissors from my junk drawer, racing back to the bedroom, cutting lengths of string along the way.
“Good work,” Dan said, as I handed him the first piece of twine, which he used to wrap the perp’s hands together. I held out another length, but Dan told me to wrap it around the guy’s ankles. I moved toward jerko’s feet trying to figure out how to wrap the string without catching a sidewise kick to my ankle. Dan saw my plight and moved one knee across the guy’s butt and onto the back of his thighs immobilizing his legs.
I’d barely finished wrapping his legs and tying my double half hitch knot when the sheriff arrived at my front door. To be accurate, two deputies arrived first, as the sheriff struggled to get his massive frame out of the patrol car.
I opened the door to Billy and his sidekick, motioning them back to the bedroom where Dan stood over the hog-tied body of a man who, now that I could see his face clearly, was not Winston Mooney.
What the heck?
Maybe I wasn’t the detective I thought I was. Based on the man’s identity and my mistaken hypothesis, I figured Sheriff Joyner should probably withdraw his job offer.
Billy swaggered over to Dan and smirked, as if maybe we’d had a ménage à trois going on that had gotten out of hand.
“What happened here?” he demanded, as though we were the perps here instead of the victims.
Dan barely blinked. “Save the attitude for someone who appreciates it, Billy. Is your boss here?”
“Uh, yeah, he’s on his way in. I didn’t say anything.” Billy’s defense sounded like a third grader’s. I couldn’t help but wonder if he ever would have attained his current position were he not the sheriff’s nephew by marriage.
Sheriff Joyner appeared in the doorway as the second deputy leaned down and handcuffed our intruder. “What the hell happened, Dan?”
“Ray, here, broke into Sam’s house carrying heat, no doubt intending to hurt her.”
“Good thing you were here to protect her,” the sheriff said, shooting Billy a black look before turning to his handcuffed arrestee. “Ray Glover, what the hell have you got yourself into this time?”
“I’m not talkin’ ’til I see my lawyer,” Glover said, looking bedraggled but defiant.
Sheriff Joyner showed no interest in what Ray might or might not want. “Three years in the joint wasn’t enough for you, pretty boy? You’re anxious to go back?” The sheriff turned to Dan and shrugged, “He must have a boyfriend up there,” he said, before berating Ray again.
“I’m sorry I ever recommended you to Mooney. You’re a talented guy. I honestly thought you’d stay on the straight and narrow. How many years have you been out now, ten? More?” He glared at Ray as he ordered his deputies, “Take him in and lock him up. He can call his lawyer tomorrow, but not before I get into the office, and given the amount of sleep I’ve had tonight, that might not be before dinnertime, if then.”
He turned to Dan. “I’ll talk to you in the morning,” then back to his deputies, “Let’s let this nice lady go back to bed and get her beauty sleep,” he glanced over at me, “not that she needs it.”
Only then did I realize I’d been standing in front of all these men in my shortie pajamas, which, while not exactly sheer, left little to the imagination.
Locking the barn door after the horse got out, I reached behind my closet door for a robe and threw it on. I think I caught Dan hiding a grin as everyone trailed down the hall, through my living room, and out the front door. I tagged along, remembering to thank Sheriff Joyner, who stood on my porch watching his deputies load Ray Glover into the back seat of one of the two patrol cars parked on the nonexistent grass in my front yard.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all this ma’am,” he said, “but it’s over now and everybody’s safe. Nice work, Dan. Good thing you were here…” the sheriff paused, “protecting her and all. You two have a good night.” He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. I caught him wink at Dan as he reached out and shook his hand in what can only be described as a congratulatory fashion.
“So much for keeping our relationship low profile,” I said, after closing the door on Sheriff Joyner and company. “We might as well have hired one of Alice Pickett’s billboards and announced it to the whole town.”
“I might do that,” he said, pulling me to him for a long slow kiss. “I’m just glad I was here tonight, otherwise…”
“Let’s not think about it,” I told him, “because I don’t want to guess what might have happened to me if you weren’t here.” The two of us stood against my front door hugging each other for a very long time.
Chapter 66
Over the next month, following the two of the most harrowing weeks of my life, local gossips, including the Chestnut City Daily News, had a field day releasing details about Alice Pickett and Ray Glover’s illegal activities, only one of which involved smuggling rare and endangered plants.
Narcotics, counterfeiting, embezzlement, and falsifying real estate contracts were among the state charges against the pair, whom a local reporter dubbed the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.
Winston Mooney’s interest in the abandoned gold mine on Jefferson Zoo’s conservation tract came to light as Ray Glover tried to incriminate his boss. However, the most serious charge Sheriff Joyner managed to bring against Mooney was criminal trespassing, a Class One misdemeanor.
Fortunately for Mooney, the zoo decided not to press charges, and while everyone denied the existence of a quid pro quo, Winston Mooney, the very next week, announced a sizable donation to the Jefferson County Zoo.
Prior to settling on the exact amount of his donation, Mooney met with Sally Ann, who convinced him to burnish his reputation even further with a donation large enough to allow the zoo to name an exhibit in his honor. Mooney agreed, and the zoo’s new primate exhibit now bears his name—the Mooney Primate Habitat.
One sassy reporter from the local newspaper dubbed the exhibit Mooney’s Monkey Business, and unfortunately for the zoo, the nickname stuck. Sally Ann was even less pleased than Mooney, which only increased the number of keeper jokes at her expense..
The zoo also dropped charges of theft against Tony Pope, who directed officials to the stash of copper welds in the old mine. Tony avoided a trial on the charge of negligent homicide, thanks to Nelson Farthington’s high-priced criminal attorney, who negotiated a plea deal.
Local sympathy helped, including a formal request for leniency from the Jack DuBois family after Tony broke down in tears describing the night of the accident and how he’d carefully wrapped Jack in plastic bags to prevent the Wetlands fauna from nibbling on the body. According to Jodie, the family appreciated Tony’s concern for Jack’s corpse, warped as Tony’s thinking might have been.
The plea deal worked out by Tony’s lawyer resulted in five hundred hours of community service plus three years probation, which kept Tony out of prison. He even managed to hang onto his job with Mooney Construction, again thanks to Nelson Farthington, who turned out to be Tony Pope’s biological father. This fact surprised almost everyone except those few high school classmates who remembered the love affair between Nelson and Tony’s mother.
According to Jodie, the affair was the reason Nelson’s family sent him to school in Europe. Unfortunately, he never knew he had a son until Tony’s mother informed him when she called to ask for his help.
Money has its privileges and its responsibilities, all of which has helped our coffers. Like Mooney, the Farthington family announced a generous donation. It was the highlight of Sally Ann’s Dinner with the Animals, an event the Chestnut City daily rag dubbed “a raving success.”
Thanks to Nelson Two and Nelson Three, the Farthingtons designated the bulk of their funding to go to the Horticulture Division, which made me ecstatic. I was looking forward to a good year at work despite the fact that Nate still hadn’t taken the hint to retire.
Speaking of the devil, the
zoo was in a flurry over the news of Nate and Mitzi’s separation. Some of the more cynical keepers had started a pool, betting on whether and/or when, the couple would divorce. Mitzi is a beautiful woman and I was wagering that a number of single men in Chestnut City—and on Nate’s staff—were rooting for a divorce.
Once the initial excitement abated, Bob invited me to his office for a private chat. Not again, I thought, worried he had another stupid suggestion in mind when it came to my relationship with the zoo’s Head of Security. My worries were groundless.
“Nate’s been ordered by Sally Ann to make nice with you or his ass is grass,” Bob told me. “I think you have Nelson Farthington to thank for that,” he added, which only goes to show what a friend with a boatload of money can do for you.
I hadn’t seen Nelson since the fundraiser, but Jodie told me he and Tony’s mom had rekindled their relationship. That surprised me, because I’d assumed he was interested in Dan’s cousin Carol, but Dan said she already had a boyfriend in Raleigh and they were about to be engaged.
I thanked Bob for all the support he’d given me, wanting to reward good behavior and keep him in my corner. He was a big-hearted guy and sounded genuinely concerned about Nate and his future. “I’m hoping Nate can clean up his act both at work and at home, for his sake, as well as Mitzi’s,” Bob said, at the end of our conversation. “They’re in counseling, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for them.”
For Mitzi’s sake, I hoped she’d leave Nate and find some nice guy who appreciated her, but that decision was Mitzi’s, not mine. I was relieved to know Nate had been removed from my worry list.
Finally, Andy LaRue made a full recovery, and returned to work minus the Barney Fife impersonations. To everyone’s surprise except mine, he and Jodie were dating.
“He’s a whole different person since that knock on the head,” she explained to me, but Jodie seemed a whole different person, too, not that I’d ever mention it to anyone but Dan.
Adieu at the Zoo_A Jefferson Zoo Mystery Page 23
