by Leslie Meier
“I don’t like this business. We should never’ve locked her up. Now what are we gonna do with her? Say, gee, sorry about that, don’t tell anybody, and we’ll let you go. Joyeux Noël and all that?”
Sounds good to me, Lucy thought hopefully.
“What else could we do?” It sounded like J.J. “The stuff’s coming in and we’ve got a newspaper reporter right here. . . .”
Lucy’s breath caught. She could hardly believe what she had heard. They really were dealing in illegal drugs.
“Let me tell you,” continued J.J. “There’s something wrong with this picture, and what’s wrong is that broad being here.”
Lucy felt her cheeks redden.
“No, what’s wrong with this picture is that we ever got involved in the first place.” That was Rusty, Lucy thought, straining to hear every word. “We’re in so deep, how’re we ever gonna get out?”
Lucy saw a dim ray of hope. Maybe she could convince them that tossing her in with the lobsters or whatever they planned to do with her would only make things worse. She heard the rattle of keys and stepped back from the door just in time.
It opened, and Claw entered, followed by his two sons.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lucy Stone. I live in town with my husband and four children. They’re probably wondering what’s keeping me.”
Claw nodded. “You tell me, what exactly brought you out here?”
“Lobsters—for Christmas.” Lucy decided to stick with her story. “Do you treat all your customers like this? Lock them up?”
Behind Claw, J.J. was smiling. “Sorry about that. It’s just that, well, you heard about this quota?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Rusty. “We’ve got too many lobsters. We’re way above quota. And you’re not gonna tell anybody about it, because I’m gonna give you some of these lobsters. That makes you guilty, too, right?”
“Right.” Lucy watched as J.J. picked up a wooden stick with a hook on the end and went over to the tank. He began pulling out lobsters and putting them in a burlap sack, and she felt a huge sense of relief. She was actually going to get out of here.
“How many you want?” he asked.
“Just one,” she said. “Like a dollar to seal a contract.”
“Nah,” said Claw. “You said four kids. Give her six, six nice ones. For Christmas dinner.”
“Thank you so much.” Lucy took the sack. “Believe me, I won’t say a word about this to anyone.”
“Not even Mrs. Santa Claus?” Claw’s eyes gleamed mischievously.
“Not even her.”
Claw opened the door for her. “Rusty, those are heavy. You carry them for the lady.”
“I can manage,” protested Lucy, to no avail. Rusty insisted on escorting her to her car. He opened the door for her, and carefully placed the sack of lobsters in the back.
“Safe home,” he said, before he slammed the hatchback down.
Her hands were shaking so badly Lucy could hardly get the key in the ignition. When it finally slipped in and turned, and the car started, she felt tears streaming down her face. It was as if she had been given a wonderful gift, a gift she didn’t deserve, and she felt humble and thankful and guilty and incredibly lucky all at once. She shifted into gear and lifted her foot off the brake, and began slowly turning the car around toward the driveway. She pressed her foot on the gas, accelerating toward the drive, when a police cruiser suddenly appeared, blocking the way out and leaving her with no choice but to slam on the brakes.
Chapter Twenty
When Tom Scott emerged from the police cruiser Lucy had mixed emotions. She didn’t really want the Rousseaus to get in trouble, but she couldn’t condone drug dealing, and that was what she suspected they were up to.
She gave Tom a big smile and a wave, expecting him to move his car when he saw who she was, but that didn’t happen. He only gave her a glance and went straight over to Rusty and J.J. Lucy figured the best course of action was to stay in her car, continuing the pretense that she was only there to pick up some lobsters.
She didn’t even turn her head to observe their discussion, she wanted to make it clear she was minding her own business, but she could see them in the rearview mirror. Scott was clearly the one in charge. She could tell from J.J.’s and Rusty’s bowed heads and restrained gestures that they were not challenging him, but that was to be expected. Nobody argued with a cop, not even at a traffic stop, unless they wanted to get into more trouble. So she sat and waited for Scott to move the cruiser.
The men finally appeared to finish their discussion and Lucy watched as Tom walked across the yard toward the two cars, expecting him to finally move the cruiser and wave her on. Instead, he stopped next to her and yanked the door open.
“Out,” he said.
“What’s this all about?” she asked, unfastening her seat belt. “I’d really like to get home with my lobsters.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, roughly turning her around and shoving her against the car. “Hands behind your back.”
Lucy had seen enough movies to know that that meant she was about to be handcuffed. She turned her head, and started to protest.
“I said, hands behind your back,” growled Scott.
Reluctantly, she obeyed and discovered that being handcuffed was a lot more uncomfortable than it looked, especially if you were wearing a bulky parka. The next step, she supposed, was to be placed in “the cage” in the back of his cruiser. But instead, Tom pulled her in the other direction, toward the lobster pound office, where she was thrown into a hard, wooden chair. Her upper arm, which had taken the brunt of the impact, felt sore and bruised.
“Don’t move,” he warned her.
Confused and frightened, Lucy nodded.
He opened the door to leave, but stepped back as an enraged Claw Rousseau came charging in.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Claw bellowed at him. “This is my place! You got no business here!”
Scott grinned at him. It wasn’t a very nice grin, thought Lucy, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as she could.
“You know how it works. You’re behind.” Scott shook his head. “The retirement fund’s not growing the way it’s supposed to. You missed last month, you haven’t paid anything yet this month. What’s going on? I thought we had a deal.”
“We’ve got a deal.” said Claw, looking nervously past Scott to Lucy. “You’ll get it, don’t worry. But you’ve got to let her go. She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Scott glanced at Lucy, and she cringed in the chair. “You know who she is? She’s a reporter. She’s been snooping all over town.”
Claw raised his hands to protest, but Scott cut him off.
“Look, right now, she’s my problem. I’ll take care of her.”
Lucy swallowed hard. That didn’t sound good. She strained to hear as Scott lowered his voice and led Claw across the room, toward the door.
“You’ve got problems of your own. I just picked up some interesting information on the radio—a couple of your associates from Boston have been spotted on the turnpike. They might be headed here, you think?”
The door flew open again and Lucy jumped in spite of herself. The thumping in her chest slowed when she realized it was only Rusty and J.J.
“Did you hear?” Claw’s tone was urgent. “The guys from Boston are coming here.”
Rusty looked stricken, as if he’d been punched in the heart.
“They want Russ Junior,” he said.
J.J. wrapped an arm around his smaller brother’s shoulder.
“We’ll take care of ’Ti Russ,” he said. “We’ll put him on the boat, send him up the coast. These guys are city boys. They won’t find him.”
Lucy struggled to follow their conversation. ’Ti-Russ, she knew, was short for Petit Russ, Rusty’s son. She remembered him as a sturdy little fellow on Toby’s youth soccer team. He’d be in high school now, she thought.
“That’s no good.” Rusty’s eyes were wide. “They don’t find Russ, they’ll kill us, or our wives and kids. Burn down the house—they don’t care. They just want to send a message.” He buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe he was so stupid, what he got us into.”
“He’s a kid. Kids are stupid.” Claw shrugged. “We’ll get the money; they’ll go away.”
Lucy remembered Toby and Eddie refusing to tell her who was dealing drugs in the high school. Now she had a pretty good idea that it was ’Ti-Russ. What had he done? Helped himself to part of a shipment, shorting the buyer and putting his whole family in peril?
“So where are we gonna get the money?” demanded Rusty, his voice breaking.
“Take it easy,” said Scott. “It’s under control. The drug task force is on to them—it’s just a matter of time before those guys are out of the picture. You lie low, keep your young entrepreneur under wraps for a while. Go on, get started. Get on out of here.” He glanced at Lucy. “I’ll take care of Miss Snoopy.”
The three men seemed to confer silently for a moment, then Claw nodded, and they shuffled out of the room. Not one of them looked at her.
Left alone with Scott, Lucy’s situation hit her with a thudding certainty. She knew way too much. Scott was going to kill her, just as he’d killed Tucker.
Chapter Twenty-One
Not if she could help it, she vowed to herself. She was going to get out of this. Nobody, especially a mealy-mouthed hypocrite like Tom Scott, was going to wreck her family’s Christmas. She glanced around frantically, looking for something, anything. The drug task force was supposed to be in the area. If only she could draw their attention somehow, anybody’s attention, maybe she could save herself. She needed time, and the only way she could think of getting it was by keeping him talking.
“You sure had me fooled,” said Lucy. “I never would have picked you for Tucker’s murderer.”
She was surprised to find her voice strong and steady. At that moment she wasn’t afraid of Tom Scott; she was disgusted by him. He had come into town under the banner of zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol, and he even had his wife passing out Mothers Against Drunk Driving pamphlets. While he was mouthing sticky sentiments about the tragedy of teen drunken driving deaths he was turning a blind eye on the drugs that were pouring into town and collecting kickbacks. Retirement fund. She snorted.
“I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you,” he said. “Tucker Whitney was a stupid bitch who got herself caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, same as you. Came snooping around here and the Rousseaus scared her off, so you know what she did? Actually called me up to report suspicious activity.”
He gave a short, harsh laugh and stepped toward her. Lucy felt her courage disappear like dirty dishwater swirling down the drain. She was utterly defenseless, hands pinned behind her back. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t make her legs work. Horrified, she watched as he took another step closer.
How many seconds did she have to live? Was he really going to put his hands around her neck and strangle her, like he did Tucker? She couldn’t let that happen.
“I have to hand it to you,” she said, struggling to make the words come out of her dry mouth. “You’re pretty clever. You planted that gum wrapper, didn’t you?”
“It was so easy,” Scott said, unable to resist telling her how he’d outsmarted everybody. “I knew I had to get rid of Tucker—she was starting to make a real pest of herself, calling the station and asking what I was going to do about the lobster pound. She even threatened to call the drug task force. Then I ran into Cummings at the coffee shop. He’d just left Tucker and he was real broken up. He couldn’t wait to tell me all albout it. How he was going to give her up and go back to his wife, even if it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. She’d been understanding, he said, actually encouraged him to do the right thing.”
“From what I heard she didn’t really care for him,” said Lucy, hoping to keep Scott’s mind off the next item on his agenda. It was all she could think to do. Every second she could delay his assault was a small victory. Maybe the Rousseaus would come back. Maybe help would come.
“Yeah, I heard that, too. But to hear him it was the love affair of the century. He was practically crying into his coffee, and popping those sticks of gum ino his mouth one after the other. He finished the pack and left it on the counter. I figured it might come in handy and picked it up with a napkin.” He grinned evilly. “I was right. I called her up from a pay phone and asked if I could come over to her house to get a statement from her before she went to work. She was only too happy to cooperate.”
“You even won a commendation from the state police for preventing contamination of the crime scene. That must have been icing on the cake.”
“It just goes to show that if you do a really good job, people notice,” said Scott, practically patting himself on the back. “But you know what the best part was? It was the look in Tucker’s eyes when she realized that Officer Scott wasn’t her friend.”
He was now standing above her, and Lucy felt his leather-gloved hands closing around her neck. She squirmed, trying to kick between his legs, but he just laughed and pressed her legs down with his. She tried to scream, but nothing was coming out, she couldn’t make a sound, she couldn’t catch her breath. Then it came, a popping sound, and everything went dark in the room.
“What the fuck,” she heard him say, and he dropped his hands from her neck. She assumed he was moving toward the window, so she ran in the opposite direction, knocking something over as she dashed across the room and crashed into the big wooden desk. She felt her way around it, putting it between herself and Scott.
She heard the door open and for a second saw Scott’s figure silhouetted against the dim dusky light outside, and then he disappeared.
Her heart was pounding. This was her chance to escape and she had to take it. She ran to the door and cautiously opened it, intending to take a cautious peek to see if the coast was clear. Instead, she was suddenly blinded by an extremely bright light that was flooding the yard. She heard popping gunshots and ducked back inside.
What with the spotlights and guns, it seemed to her that the entire compound was under attack. She got down as low as she could and scuttled awkwardly across the floor, diving under the desk. She landed hard on her shoulder; she couldn’t use her handcuffed hands to break the fall.
There was the piercing squeal of an amplifier and then an authoritarian voice boomed out. “This is the state police. Drop your weapons. Put your hands on your heads. Walk to the lighted area.”
Thank God, thought Lucy, who was only too happy to obey. She couldn’t put her hands on her head, but she could walk. She crawled out from under the desk, blinking her eyes against the light that was pouring in through the windows, and started toward the doorway, only to be immediately knocked off her feet. Scott had come back.
“Get up,” he said, yanking her to her feet and holding her in front of him like a shield. “You’re my ticket out of here.”
The pain in her shoulder was agonizing as she struggled against his grip.
“Let her go.” Lucy recognized J.J.’s voice. She heard a thud and felt Scott’s body crumple behind her. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said.
Lucy found herself in wholehearted agreement. “Me too,” she heard herself say. “Get me out of these handcuffs?”
J.J. began going through Scott’s pockets, feeling for his keys while Lucy kept an eye on the door. It was quiet outside; the gunshots had stopped.
“Got ’em!” exclaimed J.J. “Hold still,” he said, grasping her arm.
She bit her lip, refusing to cry out with the pain. First one cuff and then the other loosened, and she moaned with relief. She cradled her arm against her chest, watching as J.J. clamped one cuff on Scott’s wrist and then with a grunt, dragged his inert body to the corner, where he looped the other cuff around the gas pipe that fed the overhead heater.
�
��That takes care of Dudley Do-Right,” he said, with a satisfied smirk. “Now, the heroic Jean-Jacques, having saved the lady in distress, gives himself up to the authorities. Ready?”
“You bet,” said Lucy.
J.J. took her hand and reached for the door, but before they could step out into the light they heard the staccato of machine-gun fire, and it suddenly went dark again.
“What’s going on?” Lucy gripped his hand tighter as they ducked back into the shelter of the office.
“Fatman.” J.J.’s voice was a moan. “He loves that Uzi. I never saw him without it.”
“It couldn’t be,” whispered Lucy. “Nobody’d take on an entire SWAT team.”
“Nobody but Fatman. They named him after the atom bomb. I heard nothing can stop him. He shot five or six cops last time they tried.”
“What about Rusty and Claw? Where are they?”
“On the boat. They’re gone.”
Lucy was stunned. “You could’ve gone—why didn’t you?”
She felt his breath on her cheek as he sighed.
“I had enough. You know how all this started? We took out the boat and picked up one little package and brought it in. Never saw nobody. Just left it on top of a trash can in a highway rest area. That was gonna be it. Pay the bills, get a fresh start. But it don’t work that way. Scott shows up. Somehow he knows all about it. He wants a cut, or he’ll turn us in. ’Ti-Russ gets ahold of some, he starts dealing, and then he starts using and he’s high all the time. Pretty soon we’ve got more dope than lobsters goin’ through here, and the weird thing is, we’re not gettin’ any richer. What’s worse, we’re scared all the time. Scared of the cops. Scared of Fatman and his friends.” He inched up the wall and looked out the window. “I wish I knew what was going on out there.”
“Me too.” Lucy found herself giggling.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about my family. They’re probably wondering where I am and why there’s no supper. They probably think I went Christmas shopping and forgot the time, or something like that. They’d never believe where I really am.”
