by Hannah Reed
And stronger. Like Bob Petrie. Maybe the hickory nuts were his calling card, like what the villains in comic books always left at the scene of a crime. I told her about my exchange with Bob and how he had a hickory nut tattoo. And what Hunter had found out about our two jailbirds knowing each other.
“I knew I should have kicked him harder,” Patti said, showing me a rope burn on her wrist. “Look at that. I better get compensation from The Reporter for my injuries.”
“You should see a doctor and you should report it to the police, Patti.”
“I can’t. It’s for the greater good. Without me the whole situation might implode.”
I stared at her. “That’s why we aren’t telling the cops? Because you think you’re some kind of superwoman, and you’re out to save the world?”
“No, that’s not all of it,” Superwoman said. “I like to follow through with my commitments. Unlike some people.”
Apparently she was referring to me. “Especially when they’re in your own best interest,” I said, somewhat defensively. “I brought my family up to speed on recent developments. They’re going to help us.” Yeah, right. Just as soon as they find time away from returning husbands, new boyfriends, and online apps.
Then I went on to tell her my theory about Tom Stocke’s safe and about how Bob and Ford’s plan had been blown. “I’d really like to clear Tom’s name.”
“He’s still in the hot seat,” Patti said, “and he’s going to fry if we don’t figure something out.”
“Let’s take another look at Clay’s basement,” I said.
So we snuck back over to Clay’s house, watching the street, listening for sound. Patti headed into the basement, this time with a flashlight. I waited above.
Patti came into view at the bottom. “I think I know what hit me.”
When I saw what she was carrying up the steps I almost keeled over.
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “That’s the same shovel you took out of the Petries’ shed, the one you were going to dig with before Eugene caught us.” I was so excited my next words ran over each other. “Shovel… Petrie… Aggie made me… bark chips… shovel missing.” But Patti caught the gist of it.
“How can you tell it’s the same one?” she wanted to know. “A shovel’s a shovel.”
“See the handle? It’s all chewed,” I said, remembering digging out a big splinter.
“Wait till I get my hands on the creep.” Then Patti frowned. “But why would Bob bring a shovel over here?”
“Got me,” I said, but one explanation came to mind.
Patti came to it at the same time. “That poor excuse for a human was going to dig a hole and bury me!”
“Relax,” I said, not one bit relaxed. “We don’t know that for sure.”
I had felt a whole lot more comfortable back when I thought Tom had killed his brother in self-defense. Back then, I didn’t feel one bit threatened. But now, we were dealing with a guy with a criminal record who might have killed a man and had probably planned to kill Patti, too.
I changed into dark clothes to match Patti’s standard garb, then she and I headed out. “First, let’s check Bob’s house for evidence,” I said. “I have pepper spray in the glove compartment in case we’re caught.” Patti dug in the glove compartment and came out with a pocket-sized canister.
“I have a few weapons myself.” Patti patted her vest. “Here’s the plan. You go in first…”
“Why me? You should go first.”
“No way. If Bob answers the door, he better not see me after our last tango. All you have to do is knock on the door. Besides, his wife already knows you, right? And you visited with her recently. She won’t think it’s so unusual. Just go in, make some excuse to keep her occupied, and I’ll sneak in the back and look around.”
I was really glad I had the easy job.
“Make sure you give me at least ten minutes inside,” Patti said.
We parked out of sight and walked the rest of the way, passing Aggie and Eugene’s house, which was dark. No lights. Night had arrived fast while I hadn’t been paying attention. I wanted Alicia and Bob’s house to be dark, too, but I already knew better.
Several lights were on inside.
I knocked on the door. Nobody answered it.
I rang the bell. Nothing.
“Try the door,” Patti hissed from the shadows. “Is it locked?”
I tried the door. “Yes,” I said.
“Let’s go around back.”
Up until now I’d have said that locks aren’t really that necessary in a small town like ours. Generally, we don’t have any reason to use them. But after all my breaking and entering this week, I was reconsidering the wisdom of keeping certain elements out of my house. Of which I was turning out to be one. An element.
It made me stop and think about my character. Was my moral compass going south with P.P. Patti’s?
The back door was also locked. But we weren’t about to let that slow us down. First we looked in every single window. Nobody was inside.
Then I said, “I’m a semiprofessional window smasher. I’ll get us in.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Patti produced several different lock-picking devices and went to work. About five seconds later, the door swung open.
“You’re really good,” I said.
“Practice makes perfect,” she replied.
Just then my phone rang, causing Patti to glare at me. So I’d forgotten to silence my phone. So shoot me.
Carrie Ann was on the other end with an important new development. “A swat team is headed into Clay’s house,” she said. “I was going back to the store to play… eh… I mean finish up some computer work when I saw Hunter Wallace whiz by. I thought he was going to your house so I did a quick peek. All of a sudden, here they all came, acting like something was going down over there.”
I considered the implications. Besides Hunter’s job with the county and K-9 training, he works with the Critical Incident Team, a group of law-enforcement officials that respond to potentially high-risk situations. If C.I.T. was involved, it was dangerous.
“Jeez,” I said, pondering possibilities. A gunman? A hostage situation? Both? Had Patti and I just gotten away by the skin of our teeth? Had Bob Petrie shown up to finish off Patti and bury her? Was he inside right now, trapped, and desperate enough to come out shooting?
I kept my cousin on the line while I related the latest to my partner. We were still standing outside.
“Hunter asked about you,” Carrie Ann added. “Whether you were at home or not. He seemed worried,” she said. “I told him you weren’t there.”
“Tell her to keep us posted,” Patti said.
“Okay, thanks,” I said to Carrie Ann. “If you find out any more, call me.”
I hung up. And wondered why Hunter hadn’t given me a heads-up. Although he was a professional when it came to his job. If there was a gag order, he’d uphold it.
“C.I.T. is onto Bob,” I said to Patti. “We can turn this over to them.”
“Let’s take a quick look in his house anyway. We’re already ahead of the cops.”
So we went in, keeping the lights from our flashlights low to the ground. The only room lit up was the kitchen and a hallway. Patti headed for the basement.
When this was all over, I never wanted to see another basement.
“Well, looky, looky,” Patti said from a corner.
Where we found her telescope.
Still in the box.
Thirty-nine
After that little discovery, Patti and I regrouped. “Something doesn’t feel right,” I said from the driver’s seat of my parked truck. “Bob’s been attacking you over telescopes. But why? If the plan to rob Tom is as dead as Ford Stocke, why bother?”
“I’m a loose cannon,” Patti said, pulling the words right out of my head. “He can’t anticipate my next move. I’m onto him and he’s scared.”
“But the cops already checked out Clay’s hou
se, right after Ford’s murder. Suppose…” I paused, thinking a minute. “Suppose the plan isn’t dead after all. And Bob’s been using that house for a base of operation.”
“Maybe. It’s possible.” Then Patti’s eyes went wide. “Bob could have killed Ford so he didn’t have to share the dough.”
“Exactly. Only… if he needed the help, why not kill him afterward, not before?”
“Unless he didn’t need Ford’s help after all?”
“Not that many of us have expertise in safecracking,” I reasoned, gulping back an obvious, glaringly scary possibility. “Oh God, I think I know who Bob’s new partner is.”
“Who?” Patti demanded.
“Noel Peck,” I said. “Stanley’s grandson. He’s going to blow up the safe.”
After that we had a major disagreement over what we should do next.
“It’s going down tonight,” Patti insisted. “That’s why Bob isn’t home. He’s going to blow it right now. And he isn’t going to want any surviving witnesses. That dumb kid! How did he get involved?”
“We have to find Hunter. This is too big for us. We turn over what we have and step clear. In fact, I bet Hunter already found out about Bob’s plan. Or about Noel. That must be why C.I.T. is at Clay’s house.”
Patti had a crazy eye gleam, which should have tipped me off. “We’ll compromise,” she said. “Let’s drive over to Tom’s. We’ll call Hunter on the way. I still need my story. I deserve this story.”
Which was true. She’d been physically assaulted twice, tied up, and left all day in a damp basement without any creature comforts. If anyone deserved something out of this, it was her.
I started the truck. Patti yelled, “Hold on,” and jumped out. She paused by the front tire and bent down, fiddling with something.
“What the…” I started to say, but she dove in, and yelled, “Hit it!” When I glanced over, she had a satisfied grin on her face.
“What?” I said, multitasking as I drove—clicking on the seat belt, staying on the road, and digging for my cell phone all at the same time. “You know something I don’t? Dang. Where did I put my phone?”
“You crushed it under the tire when we took off,” she said with a smirk. “It’s in teensy tiny pieces.”
“You stole my phone?” I shouted. “And put it under the tire? Are you insane?” I felt most of the blood in my body rush to my head, like a geyser about to erupt. I was under a lot of pressure. Mostly caused by the nutcase next to me.
I counted to ten.
One: Patti couldn’t help herself.
Two: Not that that let her off the hook.
Three: Still, it was my fault for letting the piece of work in my truck in the first place.
Four: How many times did I have to suffer for her actions before I learned my lesson?
Five: My mother was right.
Six: I really did have to learn everything the hard way.
Seven: If anybody was hurt because of Patti’s little stunt, I was going to commit a murder.
Eight: And I wasn’t going to hide the deed.
Nine: Because I’d be acquitted once a jury heard the whole story.
Ten: Apparently, counting to ten wasn’t helping.
“Calm down,” Patti said. “You look like you’re going to stroke out.”
I snorted flames. “Where’s your phone?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I didn’t bring it.”
“You always bring your phone.”
“Not this time.”
I wanted to pull over and strip-search her. “Do you realize that you’re totally to blame if anybody is hurt tonight?”
“You can’t blame me for Bob’s actions.”
“No, but I can blame you for your actions.” I shook my head in disgust. “Intentionally destroying my cell phone. What were you thinking? Was it just so I couldn’t call Hunter?”
“I was thinking that you and I are going to bust a bomber.”
My fingers were white on the steering wheel. I stepped on the gas.
Patti went on spewing illogical logic. “By the time you would have explained the problem to your boyfriend and convinced him to show up at Tom’s house, it would have been too late. He’d want to call in backup and—”
“He’s got backup with him,” I fairly shouted. “He’s right down the street from Tom’s apartment with a team of experts!”
Why was I bothering to attempt reason with a straitjacket candidate? Maybe it was the blow to her head with the shovel. It must have scrambled her brains. There was no other explanation.
Okay, get a grip. Deep breaths. Eyes on the road. Slow down a little. You don’t want a cop car chasing you for speeding. Or wait, yes, you do.
My foot twitched and I accelerated.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said, seeing the outskirts of Moraine come into view. “We need to figure out what to do about all this.”
“Head over to Tom Stocke’s apartment, for starters.”
“You’re delusional. If you’re right about Bob trying to blow up the safe, I’m not going inside a building that might explode. Besides, we don’t know a thing about explosives or how to defuse a bomb.”
“I’m armed, don’t worry.”
“Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better.”
We came into town. I had my own agenda. Instead of going straight down Main Street to the antique store, I would turn onto my block and get the C.I.T. team. The two of us weren’t on the same page any longer. Patti wouldn’t like that one bit. She’d fuss and fume, but so what?
Hunter and his team would still be in the vicinity. If he wasn’t at Clay’s house, I’d have to find him fast.
Only I didn’t get a chance to follow through, because as soon as I hit the town limits, several blocks from Tom’s store and my house, I heard a loud bang. The right side of the truck was lower than the left side.
“Flat tire,” Patti said just as I’d figured it out for myself. She jumped out, whipped a ski mask over her head, and ran down Main sticking to the shadows.
As if things couldn’t get worse, they did.
Johnny Jay’s police vehicle pulled up behind my truck.
Forty
Interfering in a police investigation is a chargeable offense.
So is withholding evidence.
Tampering with evidence isn’t good, either.
Which reminded me of the shovel I’d thrown in the back of my truck.
This just goes to show how a completely innocent human being gets in deeper and deeper, and pretty soon they’re buried in lies and deception right up to their necks.
In small-town politics, our elected officials leave plenty of wiggle room to move around. They take some laws as gospel, ignore a whole bunch, and even make a few up as they go along. Johnny Jay is a by-the-book type of guy, though, even if he wrote his own code book.
Anyway, here’s what happened.
Right after Johnny Jay pulled up behind me, he and I started going back and forth with barbs like we always do.
Then he got a call about a burglary in progress behind Tom Stocke’s antique store. Tom, who had been home watching television, had tackled the masked burglar, planted several right hooks that disabled his opponent Patti (of course, he didn’t know it was Patti yet), and called the cops.
Since I was in the vicinity, Johnny Jay just assumed I was involved. Go figure.
So, here I sat in the interrogation room, pleading my case. Spilling my guts, almost everything I could remember, starting with suspicions of local involvement and finishing with my hope to save Tom’s money from the hands of a criminal known as Bob Petrie who might also have committed murder. I left out a few minor details. Like how many places I’d visited without invitations. And Noel’s possible role in all this. I wanted to talk that over with Stanley first.
Patti was in another interrogation room waiting her turn.
“How about we make a deal,” I said to Johnny Jay. “Patti and I promise we won
’t interfere anymore. You drop the charges.”
That produced a laugh from the police chief.
I wasn’t through yet, deciding to take an offensive position. “I should charge you with endangering my life,” I said. “Expecting private citizens like me to do your job for you.”
That was a long shot, but I was desperate.
“Sally Maylor checked out your allegations,” Johnny said. “She gives you more credibility than I do, but that’ll change someday soon. Bob Petrie and his family are at an antique fair something-or-other, two hours from here. They’re all together and vouching for each other.”
My best bet at this point was to make amends, play it low-key, even apologize for what was mostly Patti’s misguided delusions. I opened my mouth, but Johnny beat me to the punch with another outrageous accusation.
“You called in another false emergency,” he said next. “Didn’t you?”
“What false emergency?”
“Sure, let’s pretend. Somebody, like maybe you, reported a hostage situation in the house next to yours. The C.I.T. team was engaged. That’s serious stuff, Fischer.”
So that was why Hunter and the rest of the Critical Incident Team had been dispatched. I wondered who’d made the call. “I did not make that call, but I’m telling you, Patti was being held against her will in the basement.”
“So you did make the call.” He wrote something in a notebook.
“No, I didn’t. I don’t even have a phone anymore. I accidentally ran over it with my truck.”
“Uh-huh.”
In the end, I spent all night in jail. The crimes Johnny Jay was trying to pin on me were reporting a hostage situation that didn’t exist (completely circumstantial) and stealing a shovel (maybe provable).
“Stealing a shovel?” I yelled. “That’s beyond stupid.”
“Aggie Petrie said you stole it.”
“The nerve!”
I guess I should’ve been happy that I wasn’t charged with tampering or interfering or withholding like I thought I might, since those were much more serious. Still, someday it would be nice for Johnny to believe me. Just for once.
