Honeymoons Can Be Murder: The Sixth Charlie Parker Mystery (The Charlie Parker Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  The car pulled to a stop and our doors were jerked open.

  “Okay, the ride’s over,” Ralph said.

  Gee, daddy, just when we were having so much fun.

  A hand grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me out of the car, without bothering to remind me to duck my head this time. My forehead smacked the upper doorsill, sending a pattern of stars out my eyeballs. Car doors slammed all around and the gun barrel in my back directed me to walk straight ahead. The path was dirt and not very smooth. I stumbled a couple of times and Anton kept nudging at one arm or the other to correct my direction.

  The air felt cooler and the sun hit my face on the left side at a low angle. It was past mid-afternoon. We mounted two shallow brick steps and I heard a key in a lock, followed by Ralph’s voice instructing us to step forward.

  “Drake?” I called out.

  “Right behind you, babe. Don’t worry.”

  “Shut up, you two,” Ralph growled.

  The door closed behind us with a firm click.

  “Put them in separate rooms,” Anton instructed.

  “This way.” Ralph led us down a couple of small steps then into a hallway.

  He opened a door and shoved me into a room. My toe caught on something and I went down on my knees to a brick-hard floor. Pain shot up through my thighs and into my spine. An involuntary cry slipped out and I dropped to my side on the cold floor.

  “Charlie?” Drake’s voice.

  “She’s okay,” Ralph hissed. “Keep going.”

  The door to my room closed with a distinct click. I heard retreating steps and another door opened and closed. Anton’s footsteps didn’t move away.

  “Okay, now what?” Ralph asked a minute later, just outside my door.

  “Not here, you idiot,” Anton answered, this time without the French accent. They walked away.

  I rolled toward the door and stuck my ear to the narrow space at the bottom of it. Squiggling my head a bit to shove my blindfold away from the ear, I could hear their voices becoming fainter as they walked away.

  “. . . the airport . . . gas up first.” It was Anton’s voice, the quieter of the two, and I was only catching a fraction of what he said.

  “. . . but . . . Ramon?” Ralph’s voice became obliterated as someone turned on water in a sink.

  I strained against the door.

  “. . . worry about it. Just do your job and I’ll do mine.” Anton’s voice was right outside my door.

  I rolled away from it just as the knob began to turn.

  “Well, Ms. Parker,” Anton greeted in an especially oily tone. “I’m very sorry that we can’t stay and have a nice evening together. But we have an appointment we’ll be late for if we don’t get going.”

  We? Did he mean all of us?

  “I’ll be saying goodbye now,” he said.

  He unzipped my jacket and pulled it off my shoulder. I felt a sharp needle prick in my arm then everything went black.

  Chapter 26

  My head felt like someone had set an anvil on it, a crushing, squeezing pain in my temples. I rolled to one side and groaned. Fuzz blurred my vision and I blinked hard, rubbed my eyes. My blindfold was gone and my hands were unbound. I was lying on a bed, could feel the springiness of a mattress under me. The room was pitch black except for a dim light from the door to the hallway. I rolled onto my elbow and gradually sat up. My head pounded.

  What had happened? Anton Pachevski and Father Ralph from St. Augustine had brought us here, I remembered. Anton had come into the room, then the needle in my arm. I held my throbbing head in my hands. How long had I been out? Where was Drake?

  I stood shakily and made my way to the door, my feet feeling like lead weights. I didn’t have any shoes on. I looked around and found them beside the bed and slipped them on. I was surprised to see that the room was fully furnished. I’d expected that we had been taken to an abandoned building somewhere. In the hall only a tiny nightlight burned. Then the smell hit me.

  Gas.

  I dropped to the floor but the smell was stronger there. I stood again and made my way up the hall, trying each of the doors until I found the room Drake was in. He, too, was lying on a bed in a nicely furnished bedroom. There was no trace of the silk scarves that had restrained us.

  “Wake up, hon! There’s a gas leak in the house.”

  He stirred groggily and rolled away from me. They must have given him a larger dose of the drug than they’d given me.

  “Drake! Now!” I shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here now!”

  I took his hand and pulled, trying to roll him over. God, what to do? I went to the bedroom’s window and slid it fully open. A larger bedroom across the hall, presumably the master, had a sliding glass door leading to a small fenced yard. I opened it and cold air rushed in. Back in Drake’s room, I closed the door to the hallway, hoping to keep the deadly fumes at bay until the room aired.

  He groaned and rubbed at his eyes.

  “Drake! Wake up!” I rubbed his arms and patted his cheeks. “They’ve set it up to kill us with a gas leak. We have to get out of here.”

  “Dark,” he mumbled. “What time?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t dare turn on a light to see my watch. C’mon, there’s a room across the hall with a door. Let’s get out.”

  He sat, in the same head-in-hands position I’d taken a few minutes ago, while I fumbled in the dark for his shoes.

  “Can you stand up?” I asked.

  He gave his head a quick shake and winced in pain. “Just a second.”

  I was hoping we had at least that much time.

  “Okay, just across the hall,” I coaxed. “Then we’ll be outside in the fresh air.”

  He stood, shakily at first, but steadier as the air from the open window hit his face.

  “I’m doing better,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  We crossed the hall as quickly as we could, went through the master bedroom, and out to the yard. Both of us dropped to the winter-dead grass and took huge gulps of air.

  “We better not stay around here,” Drake said. “That whole place could blow.”

  “It’s freezing out here,” I chattered, suddenly realizing that we didn’t have our coats on.

  “Gotta be below zero,” he agreed. “We won’t make it very far without them. I’ll go back inside.”

  “No. I think you got a heavier dose of that drug, whatever it was,” I said. “Here, you get your boots on and I’ll run back inside.” I dropped the boots on the ground near him.

  My nerves were taut as wires as I again entered the lethal house. I left the hall door open as I entered the room where Drake had been. There on the chair was his jacket. I grabbed it and ran to the other room. My coat was also on a chair in my room. For all their preparation, thank goodness they hadn’t taken our coats away. They obviously hadn’t planned on our ever needing them again. I dashed back outside and threw Drake’s coat around his shoulders, then slipped my arms into mine. The parka’s hood and the gloves I kept in the pockets helped tremendously.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  The adobe wall had a portal with a wooden gate. We slipped through and looked around.

  “Let’s get away from the house in case it goes sky high,” Drake suggested, tugging at my arm.

  He pulled a tiny flashlight from somewhere deep in his parka. By its light we clambered over clumps of sagebrush to the front of the house, where we came to the empty driveway and were able to trot on its smoother surface. We slowed to a walk after about fifty yards, neither of us clearly in shape for any long distance running. In the near distance, four or five miles away, the town of Taos sparkled with thousands of tiny gold lights. Beyond it, the eastern horizon was faintly visible over Wheeler Peak. Directly ahead of us, maybe a half-mile away, Highway 64 stretched southeast toward town and northwest to Tres Piedras. And coming up the road we were standing on was a dark vehicle.

  We looked at each other.

  “Uh-oh,” said Drake.<
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  We each dove for our side of the road. I crouched behind the dirt berm, telling myself that it wasn’t them, it could be anyone, there were probably a lot more houses up this road. My heart was pounding anyway. I tucked my face under the dark green sleeve of my parka as the vehicle approached, hoping I looked like a bush.

  It roared on past. I raised my head tentatively. Through the dust it kicked up, the car looked like a small sport utility with ski racks on top and four people inside. I let out a pent-up breath.

  “Guess we ought to stick to the sides of the road,” I said, brushing bits of tumbleweed and dust off myself. “Drake?”

  “Over here,” he groaned. “Doesn’t look like I’m going to be walking anywhere,” he said. He shined the light on his leg.

  “Ohmygod, Drake, what happened?” Jutting from the meaty part of his calf was a large jagged piece of glass.

  “Guess I fell on this,” he said, picking up the top half of a shattered beer bottle.

  “Is it bleeding much?”

  “We better take a look,” he said.

  He carefully pulled the glass shard from his leg and his pant leg was immediately soaked in blood.

  “Here—quick—take my knife and cut off the bottom edge of my jeans,” he instructed.

  Under the jeans he wore thermal long underwear and woolen socks. I sliced the knit cuff from the long underwear and stretched it around his leg above the wound to form a makeshift tourniquet.

  “Hand me the material you cut off,” he said. “I need to apply pressure directly to the wound.”

  I held the flashlight while he used both hands to cover the cut. After a couple of minutes he tentatively lifted the bandage and checked it.

  “I think it’s pretty well stopped,” he said, removing the tourniquet. “But I don’t think I better try walking on it. As soon as I stand up, it’ll probably start gushing again.”

  I looked at him. His face was too white. Something inside me clenched up.

  “I’ll be just fine,” he assured me, seeing the look on my face. “Let’s just take this a step at a time.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re right. Is your cell phone still in your pocket?”

  “I don’t know.” He patted his pockets. “Here.”

  He handed me the phone and I switched it on. There wasn’t much life left in the battery.

  “Okay, what? 911?”

  “How you gonna tell them where to come?”

  Good thought. We only knew we were on a side road off Highway 64, somewhere out in the sticks. I looked around, trying to figure out a plan. I could walk up the road, following the vehicle that had just passed us, hoping to come to a friendly house and they could tell me our location so I could get emergency help. Unknown was just how far away this house might be. Things here were pretty spread out; it could be miles.

  Or, I could walk down to the highway, which was within sight, call 911 and tell them to drive out, watching for a nearly-crazed female in a dark green parka who would be waving frantically because her husband was injured, she’d just been abducted and drugged, and her dog was still in the hospital in unknown condition, and . . . Stop it! I brought myself back to center. Took another deep breath.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll walk down to the highway and call 911 from there. Chances are, there’s a road sign or mile marker, or some way of identifying this road. I’ll be able to tell them where you are. Now, meanwhile, should I go back up to the house and bring some blankets down to keep you warm?”

  “No, don’t bother, I’ll be okay,” he said, flapping his arms and rubbing his legs to keep circulation going.

  “Drake, it’s zero or below out here. It’ll only take a few extra minutes.”

  I ran back up to the house we’d just vacated. The gas smell was stronger than ever in the master bedroom. I held my breath and pulled all the bedding from the king size bed—a comforter, blankets and sheets. Bundling them into an unwieldy lump I shoved back out the door and through the wooden gate.

  Drake was shivering hard when I got back to him and I was glad I’d insisted on getting the blankets. I spread them on the ground and made him climb onto the soft layer of cloth. Then I rolled the whole thing around him as many times as I could. His head was the only part sticking out. When I stepped back I had to chuckle.

  “You look like a giant cocoon,” I told him.

  “It’s better,” he said. “Take the flashlight with you.” His bone-weary tone worried me. He was still way too pale.

  “I’ll get someone here as fast as I can,” I promised.

  Walking away and leaving him behind was the hardest part. I didn’t let myself look back, except once. Just made myself go as fast as my own pounding head would allow. I used the flashlight sparingly. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see the pale tan dirt road and I kept to the middle of it. Once, I allowed myself a look at my watch. It was only six p.m. It felt like at least midnight. It had only been five hours since Anton and Ralph had abducted us from the church. I wondered . . .

  I pulled out the cell phone again and took a chance. Dialed Ron at the RJP offices.

  “Thank God you’re still there,” I breathed.

  “Charlie? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t have enough battery power to go into it. Call James Burns at the FBI there in Albuquerque. Tell him Leon Palais, aka Anton Pachevski, is probably trying to catch a flight out of there tonight. He’ll be with a man known around here as Father Ralph. I don’t know his last name or if that’s his real name, but he’s in this just as deeply as Palais. They’re carrying a fortune in religious artifacts.

  “I don’t have any idea which airline or what time. I just heard them mention getting to the airport. After you’ve called Burns, then call Kent Taylor and tell him the same thing. I think these two also killed Ramon Romero. They left the Taos area about five hours ago, so tell them to do it now.”

  I’d hardly said goodbye when the low battery signal beeped at me. I switched off the phone, hoping it still had enough juice left to make the 911 call. The highway was only another hundred yards now. That leaden feeling was coming back into my feet again and a fantasy of being able to lie down for a few minutes briefly flashed through my mind but I couldn’t let myself do it.

  At the point where my narrow dirt road met the paved highway, I started looking for landmarks. There were a couple of industrial businesses, dark and quiet now, and I could see the county airport’s rotating beacon clearly. The entrance road must be no more than a quarter of a mile away.

  I flipped open the phone and punched in 911. Busy.

  Again.

  Busy again.

  What was going on? When were 911 lines busy? I tried to think ahead, to form an alternate plan. Just then I realized that an oncoming car was a police cruiser. I switched on my flashlight and aimed it at him, shining it toward his windshield and away in a series of flashes that I hoped resembled the code for SOS.

  Whether they did or not, it worked. The car slowed and pulled over.

  “Problem, lady?” the officer asked through the window he’d lowered just a crack.

  “Yes! My husband’s injured just up the road here and I’ve been trying to call 911 but can’t get through. We need medical attention.”

  “Good luck. There’s been a big pileup on that horseshoe curve south of town. Every emergency responder in the county is out there. Happened about thirty minutes ago, so it’s gonna be hours before they’re freed up. Then we got another one out here at Tres Piedras just now. Somebody T-boned another vehicle at the intersection. I’m on my way to that one now. You’re gonna be better off just to take him to the hospital in your own car.”

  He wished me luck, cranked up the window, and sped off to the west.

  My own car. Yeah. I’d last seen it when we parked it at St. Augustine, on the south end of town. I was now at the farthest-ass north end of town. a distance of probably twenty miles. How was I going to get there? And who knew if it was even s
till there? The two fugitives could have decided my vehicle would be safer to drive to Albuquerque. Drake’s set of keys were probably still in his coat pocket but mine, along with my purse and my brown envelope of evidence, were under the front seat of the car. If they got into the Jeep they had free access to everything.

  I started to dial 911 again but knew it was useless. The officer had told me what would happen. I wanted to kick the dirt, throw something, or sit down and cry.

  The airport.

  My pulse picked up as an idea began to form. Our helicopter was sitting at the Taos Airport, a little over a quarter-mile away, right now. Drake had told me earlier than he’d left it there for its fifty-hour inspection. A fifty-hour is pretty simple, oil change and inspecting a few items. If someone was still there, and if they didn’t have the aircraft dismantled . . . New energy surged through me. I stuffed the flashlight and cell phone into pockets and I began to run.

  Chapter 27

  By the time I reached the turnoff road to the airport property, I knew I should be pacing myself—I was in no shape to be running full speed, especially at this altitude—but something pushed me on. There, at the end of the long access road, I could see lights in the FBO facility and in the hangar. I raced to the building and flung open the front door.

  A startled dispatcher stared at me.

  “Is Frank still here?” I gasped. “Oh, never mind.”

  I bypassed the empty passenger waiting area and pushed my way through the door leading to the maintenance hangar.

  “Miss, you can’t just . . .” the dispatcher stuttered, following me.

  “Frank!” I shouted.

  A sandy blond head appeared around the back of the fuselage of our blue and white JetRanger.

  “Charlie? What’s the matter?” The dispatcher backed away after the mechanic greeted me by name.

  Although I’d only met Frank Gardner briefly when we first came to Taos, he remembered me and knew I was also licensed to fly.

  “Are you finished with that fifty-hour yet?” I asked, working to make my voice sound normal and get my breathing back under control.