The Virgil Jones Mystery Thriller Boxed Set

by Thomas Scott

  “You going to suit up, take a look?” Rosencrantz asked him.

  “No. I think I’ll get with the uniforms and coordinate with the background.”

  “Start with the woman in the unit right below Pope’s. She’s the one who made the call.”

  “She hear or see anything?”

  “Not really. But one of the city uniforms said the blood dripped through her ceiling and landed right on a little statue of the Virgin Mary she keeps on her living room coffee table. She thought it was a miracle.”

  Miles shook his head. “Ah, Christ.”

  Rosencrantz winced. “Don’t say that around her. She’ll take your head off.”

  “How long before she figured it wasn’t divine intervention?”

  Rosencrantz thought for a few seconds. “You know, I’m not sure. Probably at least a half-day, based on what Mimi is telling us.”

  Then, just as Miles was about to go talk to the woman, a car turned the corner around the back side of the building going much too fast, its tires squealing in protest. The driver slammed on the brakes and locked up the wheels, but it was too late. The car slid into the side of Miles’ brand new squad car with the sickening sound of crumpled sheet metal and broken glass. The driver jumped from her vehicle and half ran, half stumbled toward the stairs that led to Nicholas Pope’s apartment. She began to scream, “My brother, my brother. Where’s my brother?”

  One of the uniforms caught her by the arm, but Nichole Pope was a little faster and a little stronger than the cop expected and when she tried to pull free, they got tangled up in each other and they both ended up on the ground in a heap.

  Rosencrantz looked at Miles, then at his car, then back at Miles. “Probably shouldn’t have parked there. My car is out front, across the street. Welcome to the MCU, Ron.”

  5

  Virgil left Cora and Bradley and carried his broken fishing pole and medical supplies back inside the house. When he walked in he heard Sandy as she moved about between the bedroom and the bathroom. He set the pole on the countertop that separated the kitchen from the living room then placed the medical supplies into the refrigerator. When Sandy came around the corner her blonde hair was still wet from the shower, slicked back across her head. She walked over and got up on her toes and kissed Virgil.

  “I was getting ready to come out and sit with you, but then I saw Cora and Pearson pull in. What did they want?”

  Sandy was employed by the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy as their Director of Training. Prior to that she worked for Virgil as a field investigator for the MCU. She transferred to her current position after Cora discovered they were dating. She would have taken the job anyway, but the way it was handled still rubbed Virgil wrong when he thought about it. He pulled out two stools from under the counter and sat down. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  “Sure. Don’t want to be late for your appointment, though.”

  “We’ll be okay.”

  Sandy sat down next to him. “What is it? What did Cora have to say?”

  “Plenty.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Virgil removed his hat, set it on the counter and ran his fingers through his hair. “Cora came for my badge, Sandy. She brought Pearson as her witness.”

  Virgil watched Sandy’s lips start to move, but she didn’t speak. Her face turned red and after a few seconds she stood and looked out the front window toward the drive. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Sandy, wait. Don’t do anything. There’s more I need to tell—”

  But she’d already stopped listening. She cinched her robe tight and walked barefoot out the front door. By the time Virgil made it to the porch she was halfway down the front drive waving her arms at Cora and Pearson as they backed out toward the road. They were far enough down the drive that Virgil couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he didn’t need to. Sandy was bent forward from her waist and was leaning almost all the way into the car, her finger pointed directly at Cora. The glare at the top of the windshield prevented Virgil from seeing the look on Cora’s face, but he could see her hands on the steering wheel and it looked like if she gripped it any tighter it might snap in half with the same ease as the cane pole after Pearson’s misstep. After a few seconds Sandy stepped back from the car, pointed to the road, then stood with her fists on her hips until Cora backed the rest of the way out and drove away.

  When she stepped up onto the front porch the bathrobe slipped open just enough to expose the swell of her breasts and the light sprinkle of freckles across her chest. They went back inside and all Virgil really wanted to do was take her to the bedroom and make love to her…to tell her of his conversation with his dead father…to ask her to help pull him up from the depths of a place in which he sank a little lower with the passage of every waking hour. But none of that happened. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” he said.

  “What? Why on earth not?”

  Before he could answer, Sandy noticed the cane pole in pieces on the counter. “Oh, Virgil. What happened?”

  “Pearson broke it. It was an accident, I’m sure. You’re the best, baby. You know that, don’t you?”

  He’d hoped to make her smile, to somehow lighten the load he had managed to put them under, but it didn’t work. “What are we going to do, Virgil?”

  Good question. “About what?” Virgil said with a feigned indifference. Even as he said it, he knew his cavalier, drug–induced attitude had broken the moment. He watched the hurt, frustration and embarrassment as it played across Sandy’s face. Then, without saying a word she walked into the bedroom and closed the door, leaving him alone in the kitchen with a bottle of pills, a busted fishing pole, and a ruined career.

  An hour later, they rode to the hospital in complete silence. When they pulled to a stop in the parking lot, Virgil shut the engine off and turned toward Sandy. She wore a lightweight dress that matched her blue eyes, along with square-toed, short-heeled cowboy boots. The dress hung above her knees, the fabric tight across her breasts and loose around her hips. It was a perfected look and it had a tendency to turn a few heads. Virgil wore jeans with a hole in one knee, a cartoon T-shirt and flip-flops. That turned a few heads as well, though for entirely different reasons. “What did you say to Cora?”

  “Nothing that she didn’t already know,” Sandy said.

  “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

  Sandy huffed. “It means you think she walks on water but I’ve always thought she’s just another administrator who watches out for herself above all others. Look what happened when she found out we were dating.”

  “It seems to have all worked out.”

  Sandy shook her head. “Has it? I changed jobs, a change that I’d be the first to admit was something I’d been thinking about anyway, but it ended up being something I was forced into so you and I could get on with our lives. Except you were almost killed and now you’re hooked on pain medicine. How is that ‘working out,’ exactly?”

  Virgil ignored her remark about the pills. “You still haven’t answered me. What did you say to her?”

  “When I was venting or trying to communicate?”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?”

  “No. They’re not. When I was venting I’m pretty sure I referenced the size of her ass.”

  “I see. And after that?”

  “I told her that she’d just lost the best thing that’s ever happened to her.”

  Virgil reached over and took hold of Sandy’s hand. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or cause you any embarrassment.”

  She pulled her hand away and waved it in the air. “It’s not that. That’s not what upsets me. God, Jonesy, where is your head?”

  “Then what is it?”

  She turned and looked out the passenger window as she spoke. “It’s what she said back to me. I told her she’d just lost the best thing that’s ever happened to her and she looks me straight in the eye and says if I don’t get you off those pills then sh
e and I will have more in common than either of us wants. I’m scared, Virgil. I’ve never been this scared in my entire life.”

  Virgil thought it odd that the doctor had ordered the removal of the PICC line at the hospital instead of the office until he discovered that the doctor would not be the one removing the line. They had been waiting for almost half an hour when a nurse came into the room. She wore plain green scrubs with white tennis shoes, had a stethoscope around her neck and her hospital ID badge clipped low on a side pocket. Virgil guessed her age to be about twenty years younger than he was which would put her somewhere in her early twenties. Her hair was short and choppy and looked like she spent a considerable amount of time in an effort to make it look like she’d just rolled out of bed. Her eyes were clear and brown and her teeth were perfect. When she saw Virgil sitting on the hospital bed she stopped in her tracks and when she did, her shoes made a little double squeak on the floor. The sum total of her greeting went like this: “You’re supposed to be wearing a gown.” She sounded bored; her voice dull and flat like a butter knife at the back of the drawer…if a butter knife could sound dull and flat, that is.

  When Virgil didn’t immediately reply, she shrugged her shoulders and pulled a gown from the cabinet next to the bed. “Slip into this. I’ll be back in a minute.” She looked at Sandy, pointed an index finger her way and said, “No funny business.”

  After she left the room Sandy said, “Maybe she was here last time we were.”

  Virgil smiled at her then changed into the gown after the nurse left…then they waited another half hour. When the nurse came back in Virgil made the mistake of asking her if a doctor might be available to handle the removal of the line. She rolled her eyes, put her hands on her hips and spent the next five minutes explaining her qualifications and training. When she finished, she looked at him and said, “So, okay if I pull the line now?”

  Virgil may have been half stoned on morphine, but he wasn’t an idiot. “Absolutely,” he said.

  The nurse pulled the tape from the entry point—a little harder than necessary—then cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol. She told him to hold still even though he wasn’t moving and slowly began to extract the line. It was an unusual sensation. Not painful, but he could feel the line snake away from his heart and through his chest. The tube was longer than he thought it would be. She pulled it out with one slow and steady motion and by the time it was all the way out her arm was almost fully extended.

  After she cleaned the entry point again, she put a bandage over the area and told him to keep it dry for a couple of days. Virgil said he would, then asked, “Is that it then? Can we go?”

  “Not yet,” the nurse said. “I’ve got to do the paper. Just a couple of questions. Are you currently on any medication?”

  Virgil kept his head still, but his eyes slid over toward Sandy. “Yeah, I’m on some pain medication.”

  “Still hurts, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I know I could say that,” the nurse said, “but what would you say? Where do you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?”

  “I thought we were just going to pull the line and then I could go.”

  She stared at him without answering. Sandy stood from her chair and said, “I’m going to wait outside. Can I have the keys to the truck?”

  “Sure,” Virgil said. “They’re in the pocket of my jeans. I think we’re almost done here though. Why don’t you wait for me?”

  Sandy pulled the keys from the pocket of his pants as if she hadn’t heard him, then said, “See you outside.”

  The nurse looked at Virgil. “So, as I was saying, on a scale of one to ten…”

  Sandy was waiting for him in the parking lot. They got in the truck and as Virgil was about to start the engine, she reached over and took hold of his hand. He let the keys dangle in the ignition and looked at her. “What?”

  She dropped her head a little and looked over the top of her sunglasses. “You’re going to make me say it?”

  “Say what?”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s something that you’re not telling me.”

  Virgil gave her his best ‘everything is all right’ smile, but it had no effect. “Okay. Here it is. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I had an interesting conversation this morning.”

  “You mean with Pearson and Cora?”

  “Not exactly. It was just before they showed up.”

  “Someone else came over?”

  “You could say that.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I spoke with my dad today, Sandy. He was standing under the willow tree. I looked over and he was just…there.”

  “What?”

  “Just hear me out, will you? Jesus, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’ve got this buzzing in my head…I don’t know how to explain it. I was just sitting there. I had a line in the pond and I was letting the Vanco run through me and when I looked over at the willow tree, he was standing there. He was sort of hidden behind a few of the branches and when he saw me, or when he noticed that I saw him, he moved just enough so I could see him clearly. He was there. I don’t know what it means, but the buzzing in my head was gone while we spoke to each other.”

  Sandy leaned forward, her elbows on her thighs and put her face in her hands. After a few seconds she raised her head and looked at Virgil like he was a stranger. “I can’t do this, Virgil. You’ve got to stop. Do you hear me? You have to stop. I just can’t do it.”

  If the ride to the hospital was one of strained silence—and it was—the ride back was like a vacuum. When they pulled into the drive and parked by the house, Sandy looked at him and said, “What are you going to do?”

  Before Mason died, he and Virgil owned a downtown Jamaican-themed tavern called Jonesy’s, one of the most popular bars in the city, if not the state. When Virgil spoke, he did so with little care or forethought. “I’ve got to go down to the bar.”

  Sandy gave him a deliberate look. “That’s not what I meant. And you know what else? I think you know it.” She hung her head and let it sway back and forth. “What I meant, Virgil, is what are you going to do about you? God, Jonesy, where are you? Where is the man I fell in love with? I’ll tell you something…he’s not here right now. In fact, I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

  “Hey, Sandy, come on now. That’s not exactly fair. I’m right—”

  Sandy opened her door and got out of the truck. When she turned back her face was red and the wind blew her hair across the corners of her mouth. “Don’t you say it. Don’t you dare try to tell me you’re right here, because you’re not. Your body is here, but your mind? Your spirit and your soul? They’re someplace else. I think they’re living in that pill bottle you carry round in your pocket. I don’t fit in a bottle, Virgil. I never thought you did, either.” She slammed the door of the truck and started to walk away, but just as quick she turned around and yanked the door back open. “I’ll never leave you, Virgil. Never. Not after what we’ve been through. But let me ask you something. How do you think it feels to know that right now, right this very minute, of the two of us, I’m the only one who can honestly say that?”

  When Virgil didn’t answer she let the door of the truck hang open and walked away. Virgil knew there were about a hundred different things he should have done right then, but he did none of them. Instead, he dropped the truck into gear and drove away, the door slamming shut against the frame, gravel pinging at the underside of the wheel wells.

  Sandy’s words and the manner in which she spoke left little doubt in Virgil’s mind about the state of their relationship and what he needed to do. His addiction to the pills was driving a wedge between them, a situation that was unacceptable, especially after what they’d been through together. Sandy was not only his girlfriend and lover, she was Virgil’s entire life. Their future had been sealed by fate long ago when her father died while saving Virgil’s life. His na
me was Andrew Small and he was the station chief for the fire department that served the neighborhood where Virgil lived when he was just a young boy. When the house caught fire and burned he was trapped inside, buried beneath a pile of rubble that collapsed over his head as he tried to escape. Chief Small and another fireman went in to rescue him, but Sandy’s dad perished in a secondary explosion before he made it out of the house. So Virgil grew up happy and healthy, but it came at the expense of Sandy’s lifelong sorrow. Yet fate had intertwined their lives and left them beautifully connected, but with a level of expectation that amazed and often frightened him.

  He made it about halfway to the bar before he turned the truck around and drove back to their house. He hadn’t been gone very long, but by the time he returned, Sandy’s car was not in the drive or the garage and when Virgil went inside he discovered she was no longer home.

  6

  Nichole Pope had her arms crossed, the look on her face a mixture of disbelief, anger and fear. Mostly anger. She jabbed her finger at Miles. “What do you mean there’s no body? Let me tell you something, that’s wrong on about ten different levels, but the main thing is, when you use the word ‘body’ it implies that my brother is dead. Are you saying my brother is dead, Detective?”

  “Ms. Pope, we don’t really know what’s going on just yet, other than the blood in your brother’s apartment and the apparent lack of a victim.”