Advance Notice (A River Valley Mystery, book 2)

by Cynthia Hickey

  Not wanting to argue with her about what was or was not in the Bible, I set out my dobbers in imitation and reached into my purse for a little plastic frog I carried with me. “Fully Rely On God,” I told her with a grin. “Get it? Frog. F.R.O.G.”

  “I got it. I’m not ignorant.”

  And the first number was called. B-12.

  As the night wore on, and each game neared the end, the rumbling of the crowd grew louder. I couldn’t help but be drawn into the excitement. By the time the last game, a blackout, started, I’d won nothing, had a pounding headache, and my stomach ached from all the snacks. I marked the called spots half-heartedly, until the caller said O-69. “Bingo!” I leaped to my feet, shaking my paper. “Bingo. I got a Bingo.” Oh, my, goodness, I’d just won twelve hundred dollars.

  “Beginner’s luck.” Dottie racked her belongings into her bag. “Biggest pot ever and a newcomer wins. It an’t fair.”

  “It’s because of my frog.” I grinned and waited while a woman verified my numbers, and then a man in a yellow striped vest brought me my check.

  “Hurry up.” Dottie pushed past me. “Let’s go. I’m tired and ready for bed.”

  My smile didn’t fade through the congratulations of the other players, nor did it falter as I followed a poor loser to her big pink car. I had money for a humdinger of a wedding dress. Tomorrow, I’d look at the calendar and see if I could come up with a date. Maybe spring time. Then, we could have an outdoor wedding out by the lake.

  “Stop grinning like a fool and get in the car.” Dottie slammed her door.

  “What happened to Thelma and Louise?”

  “Shut up.” She put the car in reverse, then drive and squealed tires out of the parking lot. “I’m dropping you off at the apartment while I run to the corner store for some cereal. That okay with you for breakfast?”

  I glanced at my watch. She’d never be home by midnight. “Can’t I go with you?”

  “Nope. Gotta get some personal stuff, too.”

  “Okay.” I’d just wait in the parking lot until she returned. No way would I head upstairs and wait for an explosion. “Don’t be gone long. We’re supposed to stay together.”

  “Don’t suffocate me. I’ve lost older friends for less reasons.”

  My, she didn’t take losing well. I shrugged and stared out the window. We stopped at the entrance to the retirement home and waited while Danny shuffled his way past. The young man’s shoulders were in their usual slump. He never looked toward us, seemingly lost in his own world. Poor thing. A mother like Darla, and now the loss of his girlfriend and child. My heart ached for him.

  “Get out right here. No sense in me pulling in then back out.”

  I did as instructed and hobbled my aching self toward the second stairwell. Thirty minutes later, I still sat there, my elbows folded on my knees, my head resting on my arms. Where did Dottie get her energy? After midnight and the woman still roamed the town.

  Sirens wailed, and an ambulance and the town’s one squad car sped past.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Having called Duane to pick me up and drive out to where the ambulance and police car sat, we then followed the ambulance to the hospital. Dottie hadn’t returned to her apartment because she’d wrapped her pink Caddy around a tree.

  Duane and I now sat in the waiting room of St. Mary’s Hospital, the smell of antiseptic and sickness permeated the rooms. Soft beeping and the sound of padded shoes filled the air. Somewhere out of sight, a woman wept.

  “An eye witness said Dottie swerved and crashed at approximately twelve fifteen,” Duane said. “She was headed back to the apartment.”

  “The killer got to her despite me staying with her.” Acid churned in my stomach.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. My gut tells me I’m right.” I stared at the tile under my feet. A chipped corner broke up the black and white pattern. The hospital could use a dose of Dottie’s flamboyant colors.

  Duane grabbed my hand. “She isn’t dead, Mars-Bars.” He gave me a sad smile, knowing how much I disliked that nickname, but also knowing I’d welcome it at a time like this one. “The killer, if that’s the case, may not have succeeded here. Bruce said he’d be here as soon as he could to fill us in on what they found at the scene.”

  I nodded, praying Dottie would survive the attack against her. Murderers veered from their MOs all the time. It definitely wasn’t unheard of.

  Hard footsteps echoed across the floor. Bruce stopped in front of us, tapping his notebook against his palm. “Y’all step outside with me. I won’t discuss the investigation in here.”

  Duane helped me to my feet. We followed Bruce to the Emergency room exit. He continued tapping the notebook, as if he were trying to decide how much to tell us. “Okay. Best we can figure is that Dottie’s brake line was cut when she stopped at the liquor store.”

  “Liquor store?” That little old woman was full of surprises.

  “At first, we thought maybe it was a case of drunk driving, but the garage mechanic said the line was definitely cut.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “If you breathe one word of this to anyone, I will throw you in jail. We can’t let the suspects think we know more than them.”

  “Ah-ha! So you do have a suspect.”

  Bruce sighed. “Getting close, but I’m not going to divulge that information. As much as it pains me to admit, you’re smart. Think long and hard. You’ll figure it out.” He spun on his heel and marched to where he’d parked his squad car.

  “What do you think he has?” I stepped against Duane, using his body heat to ward off the autumn chill. “An anonymous phone call? A fingerprint?”

  He steered me back inside. “Let’s just worry about Dottie right now, okay?”

  “You’re right.” I took a seat in the same chair as before and stared through the large window at the dark parking lot. What if I’d been in the car with her? Would the killer still have cut the brake line since my name wasn’t mentioned in the obit, or would I have been collateral damage? Good thing I was sitting down because my legs would’ve failed me. Lindsey had no idea how close she had come to being an orphan.

  Due to the late hour, my eyelids drooped. I rested my head on Duane’s shoulder and he rested his head against mine. I woke to the doctor shaking me.

  “Mrs. Steele?” He grinned as I popped up, banging my head on Duane’s cheekbone. “None of that, now. We don’t need to be stitching either of you up.”

  I leaped to my feet. “How’s Dottie?”

  “She’ll be fine. A concussion, some minor lacerations. She’s a tough old bird. She also listed you as responsible party since she has no living relatives. She’ll be released by noon tomorrow and will need a ride.” He handed me a clipboard with a page needing my signature.

  Sweet old thing, thinking of me as family. I scrawled my name, more than ready to go home and fall into my bed. I’d also need to head to work in a few hours. I’d left Mom to mind the store alone for long enough. Wait. No, today was Sunday and the store was closed. Wonderful. I could sleep until Monday.

  Less than a half-hour later, I lay in my bed covered with a thick quilt. I stared wide-eyed through the dark room toward the ceiling. Was it possible to be too tired to sleep? My mind ran like a marathon sprinter, while my body tried to become one with the mattress.

  “Marsha!” I woke by being shook up like a milkshake. My eyes popped open and I blinked like a new puppy at Mom’s face.

  “What?” I tossed off the blanket and sat up fast enough to make my head spin.

  “Look.” She threw the newspaper at me. “The killer isn’t following standard operating procedure.”

  “You watch too many cop shows.” I scanned the sheet. My heart stopped. “Why would your name be here?” She didn’t live alone. She was married with a family. “Someone thinks we know who they are. They’re playing with us. Letting us know the game is coming to an end.”

  Mom planted her fists on her hips. “Right after we ta
lk to Bruce, I want you to march over to that newspaper and ask Frank, who we just saw at the funeral, why he would allow this to be printed.”

  Fear ran through my veins like ice water. “We need to have a family meeting.” Since I still wore the clothes from yesterday, all I needed to do was slip my uncasted foot into one of my fuzzy bunny house shoes. I shuffled down the hall to wake up Lindsey. From that moment forward, no one was to be alone. Not even to use the bathroom. Someone could wait outside the door.

  “Family meeting. Mom’s name is in the obits. Hurry up.” I tossed aside Lindsey’s blankets. She was out of bed in a split second.

  “Let’s go find us a killer.” She grabbed a pair of sweat pants and pulled them on over the boy boxers she slept in. “It’s personal now.”

  Great. As if Mom wasn’t enough to worry about.

  I hurried after my daughter as fast as my broken foot would allow. By the time we barged into the kitchen, Mom had coffee perking and Duane and Leroy were sitting, stony faced, at the table. Not two men I’d want to mess with.

  “Has anyone called Bruce?” I sat across from my honey.

  “No. He’s done nothing helpful yet.” Duane’s brow dipped lower.

  Whoa. Bruce just lost his strongest ally. “I still think he should know about this.”

  “I’ll call him.” Mom set five mugs on the table and started pouring. “I want to see his face when he realizes that his late mother’s best friend is about to die.” Her hand shook, spilling some coffee onto the table.

  Leroy placed his hand over hers. “I won’t let that happen, darling.”

  “You might not be able to prevent it.”

  “Oh, I’ll prevent it, all right. No one goes after my woman without a fight.”

  “We’re losing focus here.” Duane leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. “This is a direct invitation to find this person. They’ve stepped out of the norm to target Gertie.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” My stomach rebelled at the thought of coffee or anything else put inside it. Instead, I swirled the dark liquid and let my mind try to process through the information I knew, in hopes of pinpointing a murderer. Very difficult to do, when everyone expressed their outrage and opinion all at the same time.

  The noise level reached dangerous levels when a piercing blow on a whistle put an end to it all. Bruce marched into the kitchen. “I heard y’all from the driveway.”

  Mom slapped him in the chest with the rolled up paper. “You can arrest me for assault after you read that.”

  “Why would I arrest you?” Bruce smoothed out the paper.

  “Because, I’m going to punch you in the mouth for not finding this person by now.” Mom stomped her foot. “Your poor mother must be rolling over in her grave.”

  “Leave my mother out of this.” He scanned the page, his eyes widening. “Heaven have mercy.” He took a shaky breath and fixed his gaze on Mom. “You’ll be fine, Gertie.” He squared his shoulders. “I’ll make sure you have around the clock protection, if I have to do it myself.”

  “Well, that’s sweet of you, but I’ve got Leroy. Marsha was staying with Dottie and that didn’t help her none.”

  He glared at me. “Why haven’t you figured this out yet?”

  “Me?” What in the world? “You’re the cop. Why don’t we have any detectives assigned to help us out? Or the FBI?”

  His shoulders sagged. “Because I didn’t pass on the need.”

  Duane leaped to his feet like a bullet. “You had better not mean what I think you mean, you little twerp.”

  “I thought I could handle this.” Bruce held up his hands to ward Duane off. “At first, I thought it was all just a prank. Then, when I realized it was something serious, it was too late.”

  “When did you figure that out?” I asked.

  “When Dottie’s brake line was cut.”

  Duane doubled up his fist, then obviously had second thoughts about striking a man in a police officer’s uniform. “I don’t know what to say.” He moved back to his seat.

  “Well, let’s go over what we know.” Bruce rubbed his hands together.

  “Wait.” Lindsey dashed to the drawer where I kept my clue-taking clipboard. “I’ll write it all down.”

  “Somebody is filling out fake obits online. Nobody at the paper is verifying the information because they’re short-staffed. I checked with Frank. See, I did do some detecting.” He grinned, then frowned when Duane growled.

  “The victims were all elderly women who lived alone. Also, we got back blood work from Little Rock.” He eyed each of us. “I shouldn’t be telling y’all this, but I desperately need your help. And, yes, I’ll be contacting the feds. The blood work from each of the victims showed high doses of methamphetamine.”

  “Which, must have been slipped to them,” I added. “None of the women were drug abusers, although Dottie enjoyed her wine.”

  “I think it best that all of you stay under one roof,” Bruce suggested. “Duane, you too. The more people around, the less likely the killer will strike.”

  “Unless he blows all of us up in one big pow.” Lindsey lifted her head from where she’d been taking notes. “At this point, whoever the bad guy is won’t really care how many people he takes out. Grandma has a gas stove. Easy peasy…Boom!”

  I cringed at her choice of words. The fact that she had a very good point caused my stomach to roil harder. “Leroy, turn off the pilot light to the gas.”

  “Already on it.”

  A glance at the clock showed I had thirty minutes to pick up Dottie. Fatigue weighted my limbs. My eyelids felt like sandpaper. Hopefully, I could pick her up, drop her off, and get home for a nap. After all, we had thirty days before danger struck. But, I didn’t think I’d sleep well for any of it.

  I pushed to my feet. “I’ve got to go pick up Dottie.” Duane started to stand. “No, stay here and look after Mom and Lindsey, please. I’ll be back within the hour.” I bent over, gave him a kiss and headed back to the cottage to change my shoes and run a brush through my hair.

  The drive to the hospital took longer than usual, most likely because my tiredness had me driving five miles under the speed limit. The parking lot was full when I pulled in, and the hands on my watch were pushing against twelve o’clock when I stepped up to the patient pick-up desk.

  A man stood in front of me, arguing about release papers. My mind wandered, going over the notes Lindsey had written on her paper. Elderly. Alone. Drugs.

  Oh, my. I knew who the killer was.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I texted the killer’s identity to Duane and to Bruce, then shoved the phone back in my pocket. I needed to get Dottie home—fast. Careening into her hospital room, I came face-to-face with the exact person I texted about.

  Darla Quincy clutched a pillow in her hands and leaned over Dottie. She smiled as I entered. “Is she going home today?” Darla made a great pretense of fluffing the pillow and putting it under Dottie’s head. “My, that seems early.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Do what?” A frown line appeared between her eyes. Why hadn’t I noticed how deep it was before? “Do you have your column done for the paper?” Darla stepped toward me. “Or any advertisements sold? Frank is getting pretty temperamental about the state of his newspaper. As nosey as you are, you should have plenty of gossip for your column.” She made a motion with her head to something over my shoulder.

  How long would it take Duane or Bruce to get my message? Would they come here or go to her house? “I’m thinking about quitting my job at the paper. Are you the one in charge of the obituaries?”

  “What am I not in charge of?”

  Something jabbed me in the back. “Come on, Mrs. Steele. We’re all going for a ride.”

  I sighed, recognizing Danny’s voice. Of course the young man still tied to his mother’s apron strings would also be involved. “Did y’all succeed in killing Dottie?”

  “No.” Darla spun me around. “Yo
u prevented that, thank you very much. Now, start walking and keep cool. If you alert anyone that everything isn’t hunky dory, Danny will have to shoot you. After all, what better place to get shot than in a hospital? Take the stairwell, Danny. We don’t want to bump into anyone in the elevator. Once we dispose of her, I’ll come back and finish off the old woman.”

  My mind raced, trying to find a way out of the sticky situation. With Danny behind me, gun in hand, and Darla walking so close I could feel the gun in her pocket, escape seemed like a remote possibility.

  Looking both ways, Darla pushed open the stairwell door. “It’s a long walk to the bottom. Don’t try anything, or you’ll roll all the way, if you get my meaning.”

  Loud and clear. Another jab in the back sent me walking ahead of them. Instinct told me my only chance of surviving the day lay with Danny. Darla was nuttier than a chocolate peanut cluster.

  Our footsteps echoed on the metal stairs encased in a concrete block corridor. I thought about screaming for help, but reconsidered. Doing so would result in one of two things: either I got a bullet in the back, or a shove down the stairs. Neither option sounded like fun.

  “Why are you doing this?” I paused, one hand on the railing, and turned. “You could have walked out of Dottie’s room and no one would have been the wiser.”

  Darla snorted. “I could tell by the look on your face when you saw me standing there, that you knew.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “You were standing there with a pillow about to put it over her face.”

  “Semantics. Start walking.” She pulled the gun from her pocket and turned her anger on her son. “Don’t stand there like a baboon. Make her move.”

  “I’ve always liked her, Mom. She’s done nothing to me. Why can’t we let her go? We can head up to Canada or Mexico.”

  I doubted the other women had done anything to him either, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Why did you pick the victims you did? I mean…none of them caused you any harm.”