“Barb. It hurts.” His wild eyes sent chills down my spine. “Over and over again. I don’t want to go into the twisty tunnel again. What if I don’t find my way back?”
“You’re safe, Moyle. It’s only me, and Vikki, and Colt here and we’re not going to hurt you.” I showed him the glass. “Drink this milk.”
Colt had Vikki move into the kitchen where she could watch safely from across the granite island. Then he helped me raise Moyle to a sitting position while I coaxed him to sip from the glass. It was slow going at first, but eventually he gulped and drained the glass. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve and burped.
“Thanks,” Moyle said. “I needed that.” Renewed and more the Moyle I knew, he cocked his head, giving Colt a once over. “Hi, ya. My name’s Moyle. Have we met?”
Colt sneered. I waved him away.
“Moyle, do you remember what happened just now?” I touched his shoulder.
“Sure. I came over to, um…” He scratched his chin.. “I, uh, went for a walk and, um…” He put his head between his knees. “You know, I don’t feel so good. Tired. Real tired. Can I go to bed now?”
Chapter Nineteen
Colt wanted me to take Moyle to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
I argued that he just needed a warm bed and some rest.
“He could have hurt her,” he shouted.
“I don’t want to go to a hospital,” Moyle argued weakly. “No hospital, please.”
“If he was going to hurt her, he would have done it before we got here. You saw him—he was on the floor in pain. He wasn’t about to hurt anybody.” I did my best to talk Colt down before he went all pit bull on Moyle.
“Pain—another reason he should be in a hospital,” Colt reasoned.
Still wobbly, Moyle put up a fight. “Please don’t take me to this hospital.”
“We aren’t taking you anywhere but home, Moyle.” I tugged on his elbow to get him to stand up.
“I agree with Barb,” Vikki said. “Let him rest in his own bed. I can check in on him.”
“No, you will not,” Colt said, nostrils flaring.
“Don’t talk to me like that, Colt Baron.” Vikki glared at him. “I’m a grown woman capable of making my own decisions.”
“You go, girl!” I high-fived Vikki. “But I can check in on him. I’ll let you know if we need to rotate visits.”
Reluctantly, Colt helped me walk an unsteady Moyle to my van. Before I closed the passenger side door, Moyle grabbed Colt’s arm. “I can tell you don’t like me, but I swear to you, I would never hurt Vikki. I’d hurt myself before I’d ever harm another living being.”
Colt pulled his arm away. He didn’t know how to respond to such passion.
“Oh,” Moyle added, “and your great-grandson looks just like you. It’s uncanny.”
I drove Moyle to his place, where he crawled right into his bed. He was snoring before I turned the light out. His fridge and cupboards lacked anything healthy to eat. I wanted to drop in on Olga and give her a heads-up about Moyle’s little breakdown so she could be on alert if he wigged out again. Maybe she could leave him some decent food for when he awoke.
First, I called my mom to see how she was doing and to let her know Howard would probably be home soon to relieve her.
“No,” she said, “I just got off the phone with Howard. He’s meeting Colt at Eric’s—something to do with a case they’re working on. We’re fine here. I’m teaching them how to change a tire. By the way, a friend of yours stopped by. She said she just wanted to say hello and she’d catch you later. She was a nervous little thing, though, I must say.”
I pushed away horrifying mental images of a tire-changing lesson gone wrong and tried to think of any little nervous friends who might stop by my house unannounced. “What was her name?”
She paused. “You know, I forgot to ask.”
“Mom,” I groaned.
“Barbara, I’m not your answering service. I’m not a babysitting service either, so consider yourself lucky I’m here at all.”
“Can you at least tell me what she looked like? Blonde, brunette?”
“I couldn’t tell for the hat and sunglasses. And that baggy trench coat didn’t suit her at all. Wait, wait. Now I remember, I did ask her name. It was a boy’s name. Bobbi, I believe.” She huffed out a frustrated breath. “No Amber, you rotate the wrench counter-clockwise. Counter. Remember, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Honestly, Barbara, do you teach these girls anything useful?”
“Bobbi? I don’t know a Bobbi.”
“Oh wait, Bethany just corrected me. The woman’s name was Bernie.”
Walking from Moyle’s abode to Olga’s main house, I texted Colt. Bernie Ford was at our house looking for me. Why are you and Howard at Eric’s?
I was about to knock on Olga’s back door when it swung open with a swoosh. Her magnified eyes peered at me through her round spectacles. She reminded me of a miniature Harry Potter, minus the lightning bolt scar.
“I see you coming from guest house. You visit Bob?”
“Not exactly. Do you have a few minutes?”
She let me in and I recounted his breakdown at Vikki’s in full detail. He was living in her guest house, after all. She deserved to know what she was dealing with.
“That is all very interesting,” she said, rubbing her chin and nodding.
My phone chirped, alerting me to a text from Colt. Eric was still sick in bed, but he’d try to get police surveillance on Bernie’s house right away. Colt and Howard were on their way to scope out Ed Sigmund’s last known residence.
“Something important on your phone there?” Olga raised a brow in interest.
I hesitated, not sure how much information I should divulge.
She crossed her arms. “It is Ed Sigmund, am I right?”
“What?”
“This old man in mall parking lot you attack.” Olga gestured toward her TV. “News at six. This is all over television since I get home. You are famous again, That Barbara Marr.”
I went on the defense. “First of all, we didn’t attack him, he tried to kidnap me with an air pistol. Colt was intervening. Secondly, how did you know it was Ed?”
“Me, I am thinking for long time now Ed not dead.” Olga nodded wisely.
I stared at her for a beat. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Everyone at Nature Center already think I am crazy KGB Russian lady. I am not needing to fuel these fantasies further. But now, I see, I am correct.” She tapped her index finger to her forehead. “Olga has the brains, no? Plus, a few weeks ago, I think I see him at the coffee shop buying vanilla latte. He have on hat and sunglasses, but I say to myself, Olga, this looks awful lot like Ed Sigmund. But he never seem like vanilla latte kind of guy, you know? So I brush it off.” The corners of her mouth turned down as she shrugged.
“Yeah, you were right. And hang on to that brain of yours—guess who showed up at my house today also in a hat and sunglasses?”
Olga’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Bernie Ford.”
“Bingo.” I touched my finger to my nose. “I think she and Pickle and Ed all worked for a government research lab in Long Island. My guess is, top secret kind of stuff.”
“This is the POGO you and Moyle talk about?”
“Right. POGO Labs. Colt researched them. My theory gets a little wild from here. Do you think you can you take it?”
“Barbara Marr, I come from what used to be USSR. You Americans do not have any idea of wild, trust me.” Olga’s hand cut through the air. “Spit it out.”
“I can’t even believe I’m going to say this, but here it goes. I think Moyle was abducted as a young boy and used in top secret mind control and time travel experiments.” I stopped to take a breath. “Oh man. That sounded ridiculous in my head, but out loud, it comes across as laughably preposterous. There must be another answer.”
“And you think Ed, Pickle, and Bernie performed these experiments on him?”
&
nbsp; “At least involved somehow. It would explain why he dreams about them. His time travel stories. It explains a lot.”
“And you think Ed killed Pickle?”
“Yes.”
Olga considered that for a moment. “For what reason?”
“Who knows?” My question wasn’t rhetorical.
“If what you say is true, the sense is better that Bob—Moyle—killed him, no? He flipped a switch, memories of his torture flood back, and he stabs Pickle in a fury.”
“Maybe, but I just don’t think he did. My gut tells me he isn’t capable.”
Olga acknowledged that with a speculative rub on her chin. “I see what you are saying. You are right. This idea you have is wild. But, let us assume you are barking around the right tree. Ed killed Pickle for some reason relating to Moyle and POGO Labs, yes?”
“Right.”
“So Moyle knows Ed’s secret reason. And if Ed killed Pickle, he could kill…” Olga glanced in the direction of her guest house.
“Moyle.” I said, finishing her sentence. “I left him alone with Ed and Bernie out there knowing I’m piecing the puzzle together!”
We both bolted for the door,
“You get Moyle!” shouted Olga. “I get my nunchucks!”
Chapter Twenty
We were too late. Moyle was gone. I tore back the covers on his bed, checked the bathroom and shower stall, the one tiny closet—the answer was definitive: Moyle had disappeared once again.
Olga arrived seconds after my search, out of breath, flashlight in one hand and nunchucks in the other.
“He’s gone,” I said. “But then again, that’s nothing new for him.”
The sound of an engine revving and tires squealing prompted us both to tear out the door, past the side of Olga’s house and to the sidewalk. But we were too late again. Olga shone her flashlight on the backend of a silver sedan as it peeled down the road at racetrack speed. The air reeked of burnt rubber.
“Could you make out any of that license plate?” I asked Olga while gasping for air.
“No.” She paused to catch her breath, “But I think I know that car.”
“How? That looked like every silver car in the world.”
“Bumper sticker on right side—it was orange and green just like bumper sticker on Helen Moyer’s car.”
“Helen Moyer.” I shook my head in denial. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it does—she disappear same time as Bernie. Could be huge volunteer conspiracy.”
“She’s in hiding, but not for that reason.”
“What do you know?” Olga sounded confused.
“Can we go back inside? It’s cold out here.” I rubbed my arms.
“Sure, I make you Russian cure for a chill.” She turned to walk back up her driveway.
I fell into step beside her. “Vodka?”
“Hot chocolate.”
“That’ll work.”
“With vodka.”
Inside, while Olga warmed milk on the stove and I sat at her kitchen table, I declined the vodka and recounted the story of how I discovered Del Rowenhorst and Helen Moyer hiding out in a house across town.
“Del is just keeping Helen safe from her family who wants to put her in a home.”
“What family? Helen has no family.” Olga looked up from pouring milk into two mugs.
“None?”
“Helen never marry. No kids. She never talk about brother or sister. She spend holidays with friends like Del,” Olga explained while spooning cocoa in the mugs.
“Why would she lie to me?” The lightbulb went off. “Unless Helen did kill Pickle.” I thought that theory through. “No, Eric said whoever killed Pickle was strong enough to drag his body from the murder location to the chair by the pond. Helen couldn't do that.”
Olga set the hot chocolate in front of me. I wrapped my hands around the cup to warm my hands. “There are too many unknowns. We don’t even know if someone kidnapped Moyle. He disappears at the drop of a hat. It wouldn't be unusual, especially after his breakdown today at Vikki’s. And we don’t know for sure if that was Helen’s car tearing away.”
“This is true.” Olga splashed some vodka in her hot chocolate.
“We do know that Helen and Del were lying to me about the reason they were hiding, but we don’t know why.”
“We know Ed Sigmund isn’t dead. We know that for sure, yes?” Olga lifted her cup, elbow out.
Olga’s mention of Ed Sigmund reminded me that I hadn’t heard from Howard or Colt. They were supposedly checking out his last known residence. I dialed Howard’s number and answered Olga’s question while his phone rang. “Sure, we know Ed’s alive, but again, why fake his death? I thought it had something to do with POGO labs and a connection to Moyle.” Howard’s voicemail message interrupted my chain of thought. I listened to the end, then left a quick message. “Howard, Moyle is gone and we think he might have been kidnapped. Where are you and what did you find?” I clicked off, only slightly uneasy that he didn’t pick up. He might have had his phone muted for good reason.
Olga snapped her fingers. “Maybe Ed Sigmund stole Helen Moyer’s car and kidnapped Moyle!”
“Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. Not sure why he’d do that, but we can put it on the table.” My head was spinning. Too many people. Too many variables. Too many questions. My belly churned, and I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat and now I’d had sugary-sweet hot chocolate on an empty stomach. My worry for Moyle didn’t help matters. I pushed the hot chocolate away and stood. “That was delicious. I think I should go home and wait to hear from Howard. I haven’t seen my girls all day either.”
“You want I should drive by Helen Moyer’s house—see if her car is there?”
I shook my head. “Probably better to stay here just in case Moyle comes back. Let me know if he does.” We exchanged cell phone numbers.
“I follow you out,” she said. “Time for my cigarette.”
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I squinted at Olga.
“All Russians smoke. It is dirty habit, so I allow myself one each night before bed. I don’t smoke it in house though—brings down resale value.”
While walking her brick path to the sidewalk, she lit up and instantly, I recognized the familiar scent. “That smoke. It has a distinct odor, doesn’t it?”
She blew out a plume that lingered in the glow of the spotlights on her house. “You notice, eh?”
“Are they Russian cigarettes?”
“Surprisingly, no. Italian.” Olga gestured with the cigarette. “Sue me. I like this brand. No filter, no chemicals. Hint of spice for flavor.” She took another drag.
“I’ve been smelling that same cigarette smoke a lot lately. Like it’s following me. Have you been following me, Olga?” I joked.
“Ha! You caught me. I am secret KGB operative sent to America to kill That Barbara Marr. Only I do it very slowly with organic Italian cigarette smoke.” She laughed.
As I pulled away, intending to head home, I wondered if Olga’s idea to check out Helen Moyer’s house wasn’t a good one after all. Even if Del Rowenhorst had been lying about Helen walking from her house to the Nature Center, the fact she could come up with such a lie told me Helen must not live far.
I drove to the Nature Center, then parked for a moment under the one streetlight in the small, empty parking lot. A quick search on my phone showed me that Helen’s house was just around the corner. Since I hadn’t heard back yet from Howard or Colt, I took a minute to text them both, asking for a reply to keep me in the loop.
Setting the phone back on the passenger seat, I reached into my glove compartment for my pepper spray, just to be safe. I motored out of the lot to the next intersection, took a right and followed the GPS directions to Helen’s house.
The place was an absolute blackout. No lights on inside or out. No car in the driveway. That didn’t mean anything, of course. A vehicle could be inside the garage.
I reached under the pass
enger seat and pulled out my handy dandy flash light, which I’d learned, being me, was always good to have. Spray and a flash light. I never went anywhere without them. Well, almost never.
My tummy grumbled. It wanted food. I had two goals in mind: check to see if I could open the garage door and peek inside, and look for evidence of Moyle. Both would be quick, then I’d run home, eat, and see my girls.
As I feared, the garage door wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the inside. I shone the flashlight around on the ground looking for footprints, drag marks, anything that might point to someone being here recently maybe with Moyle in tow. A twig snapped somewhere nearby.
I perked my ears attempting to locate the sound. A rumble of an approaching car made me shut off the light and duck behind a bush under one of Helen’s front windows.
The car passed by. I heard a garage door raise, the sound of tires turning onto a driveway and soon enough, the garage door lowering. I powered the flash light back on and ducked around to Helen’s backyard. The backyard did not yield any clues. Finally, my hunger overwhelmed my curiosity and I called quits on this mission.
On my way back to the van, I realized that I had left my cell phone in the front seat. Not a smart move. Just as I opened the van door, another twig snapped. This time it sounded much closer. I readied the pepper spray while shining my flashlight around quickly, spotting nothing out of the ordinary. When my phone rang, I gave up, sure that Howard was returning my call. I slipped into the front seat, and closed the door. My caller was Guy Mertz, not Howard, alhough I saw a text had come in from him while I was casing Helen’s place.
“What’s up Guy?” I slipped my key into the ignition and got the van running with heat going strong.
“Have you eaten yet?”
“As a matter of fact, no. What are you, clairvoyant? I’m starving.”
“I’m in your neck of the woods. Meet at Firoenza’s? My treat.”
Dial Marr for Murder Page 13
