Beeline to Trouble (25 page)

Forty-four

Regarding Johnny Jay’s complete meltdown: I was
good friends with a nurse once who worked in a hospital. She handled blood and guts every day. But when I accidentally almost whacked off a finger with a cleaver while she and I were in the kitchen together, she fell apart, became more than useless in the emergency. Later she explained, “I’m used to it in a clinical setting, not in my personal life.”

So that must explain the cop I was trapped with. I’ve seen Johnny Jay in full control of a dangerous situation more than once, and he can be formidable. Now that he’d been forced to give up that control, he’d reduced down to a big, fat quitter.

Surprisingly, although my muscles felt sore, I was back in control of them.

I yanked on my seat back, hoping it would fold down so we could get into the trunk, maybe find a tool that could help us. No such luck. It wouldn’t budge. The smell of exhaust fumes wafted my way.

“Where’s your baton?” I said to him, eyeing up the plastic barrier keeping me from the front seat. “We can bash our way out.”

I glanced over. Johnny hadn’t moved or looked up.

I said, “Let me guess. You gave that to her, too.”

“I never liked you, Fischer,” Johnny said.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” I threw my shoulder at the door. And only hurt my shoulder. “Do you mind helping out here?”

“It’s useless,” he said. “Give it up. You know why I never liked you?”

I slumped down next to him.

“Because you were so mean.” This was Johnny talking to me?

“You’re kidding, right?” I said, in disbelief. “I’m not the one who picked on weaker kids!”

“I needed a friend back then, and I reached out to you. You pushed me away every time, mocked me in front of our classmates. You were a mean girl.”

I have to admit, looking back, I wasn’t always kind and considerate to others. But still! “So this really doesn’t have anything to do with me turning you down for prom?” That’s what most of my friends and family thought. If I had accepted his offer way back then we’d be friends now.

“You know how long it took to work up the courage to ask you?” he said. Okay, it did have something to do with prom.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I didn’t go to prom. Six rejects. Can you imagine what that did to my ego?”

Johnny Jay has a crushed ego? Yeah, right. “I didn’t reject you six times,” I told him, getting down on the floor and peering under the seat.

“Not just you, six different girls rejected me, but yours hurt the most.”

What was this? Deathbed confession time? “I’ve said I was sorry. Can you give me a hand down here? See if you can loosen these bolts holding the seat back in place. If we can just get into the trunk maybe we can find a way out.”

Johnny Jay squished down beside me and reached way down and toward the back. He grunted so I knew he’d put some effort into it. “I can’t get a grip,” he said. “My fingers keep slipping.”

I pulled off my T-shirt and handed it to him. “Wrap that around it.”

It seemed like forever, but must have only been a minute or two, when he finally rose up with bolts in his hand and his eyes on my bra. I grabbed my top and whipped it back on.

Johnny put some muscle into the back of the seat. By some miracle, it pulled away, exposing a pathway to the trunk. He slumped after that.

“Are you feeling dizzy?” he said to me.

“Not yet,” I said, light-headed now that he’d mentioned it. “And quit talking. You’re using up our air.”

I scooted through the opening, since Johnny was too big for the job.

“Where’s the tool kit?” I yelled to him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said back.

“I’m sick and tired of your quitter attitude,” I said, getting extra anxious over having to deal with Johnny and what was fast turning into the hopeless situation he’d predicted.

With the squad car running in the closed up building, how long would it be before we succumbed to the toxic fumes?

“Johnny!” I said loudly.

No answer.

I twisted around and poked my head out. Johnny was lying back with his eyes closed.

So I slapped him. Hard.

His eyes flew open.

“I don’t know what to do next,” I said, close to tears. I didn’t want to die yet, and I especially didn’t want the chief’s face to be my last image of life. “I don’t want to give up, too.”

“It doesn’t . . . matter,” Johnny said again, all dramatic.

“Shut up, Johnny,” I said, using his line.

Then I thought of something Hunter had told me in case I was ever trapped in a trunk.

At the time, I thought it was a big joke. Like I’d ever be trapped in a trunk. Right? But Hunter was always giving me trivial pointers.

Here’s what he said: Some of the newer model cars have an emergency trunk release inside. Don’t ask me why that stuck, but it did.

And Johnny’s car was pretty new. Where would a release like that be?

The trunk was dark. I fumbled around in a panic, finally found something that felt like a latch, pulled on it . . . and watched the trunk swing open from inside.

I scrambled out and made for the garage door.

As if we hadn’t been through enough, the overhead door was locked. So was the side door.

Nothing can be easy. I raced back and opened the door on Johnny Jay’s side. He flopped out onto the floor. Geez. The guy had a lot of weight on me. Why was he the first to go down?

We were out of the car, but obviously not out of the woods yet.

I turned off the squad car, found a crowbar in the trunk, and actually managed to pry open the side door. It’s amazing what a person can do under pressure.

I pulled and prodded and slapped at Johnny until finally, with a little help on his part, I got him outside, where we crawled onto the other side of a thick bush, fell side by side, facing the sky, and sucked up fresh air.

If Effie had been watching, she would easily have caught us coming out, and we would have been goners.

Instead, she’d obviously been too confident, too sure that she had us trapped, because she was a no-show, thank God. Because I didn’t have any more tricks up my sleeve.

Except we still didn’t have any means of contacting the outside world for help. I’d dropped my cell phone, and Johnny had surrendered his equipment. Not only that, Effie had an arsenal of weapons at her disposal.

“Can you swim?” I said to Johnny.

“Better than you, Fischer,” he said, not too far gone to challenge me.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

And that’s how we made our escape, slinking through the yard, staying in the shadows, wading into the lake, and pushing off for the next house down the line. And in this neighborhood, that was quite a swim.

Forty-five

Thankfully they were home, didn’t flip out and
shoot us when we rose from the lake like monsters from the depths, and did a bang-up job of calling for police backup and wrapping our shivering bodies in blankets.

Later, I found out why Johnny had been overcome with the fumes first. He was in worse shape than I was, and I don’t mean just aerobically. Thanks to Effie’s efforts to kill us, and Johnny’s subsequent visit to the ER in the back of an ambulance, the doctors discovered that his ticker needed a little maintenance.

So you might say I had a hand in saving his life more than once. Even so the ingrate threatened to arrest me for assaulting a police chief. Hopefully, he’ll forget about those slaps over time. Ha, not likely.

But that came later. After our phone call for police backup, Effie put up quite a fight.

The Critical Incident Team handles the big stuff, not the local police, and Effie sure did qualify for special treatment after attempting to murder a cop (I counted, too, but not nearly as much). Since Hunter is part of that team, he, several others, and K-9 superhero Ben went in for the takedown, leaving me at the other end of the driveway, biting my fingernails.

A shot rang through the air. I said to Sally Maylor, “Was that one of us firing?”

She shook her head, and I took that to mean she had experience determining type of weapon sounds, and this one wasn’t one of ours. Effie then, had taken the shot.

Silence ensued and time passed. I stayed back on the perimeter per orders, holding my breath, craning for a view, my heart beating overtime, thinking, what if the absolute worst happened and I lost Hunter?

Next I heard Ben bark and a high-pitched female scream.

Pretty soon, the team came into view, Ben dancing in the lead as though he’d had the time of his life, Effie trussed up like a bird ready for the spit, and a piece of cloth wrapped around her wrist where Ben had taken the chief’s gun away from her.

We watched the other team members shove Effie into the back of a squad car. I was glad it was someone else’s turn for a change.

“My truck is still here,” I said to Hunter. “Come home with me.”

Hunter waved off the rest of the team and everybody took off, leaving us alone.

“I’m grilling a burger for you tonight,” I said to Ben. Hunter thought I meant him, gave me a big, loose grin. “You, too,” I told him, proud of my guys.

“The Illinois police picked up Harry as soon as he crossed over the Wisconsin border,” Hunter told me. “He had a hostage with him. Patti.”

“Patti?” I said, wondering how long Harry would have been able to contain her before she cleaned his clock. And wasn’t it a good thing I hadn’t counted on her to rescue me? She’s rarely around when she’s needed the most. Then I remembered the shadow on the other side of the cedars while my mom was having her meltdown. That must have been Harry, stalking her. Patti must’ve been the one I saw in the truck’s passenger seat.

Hunter followed up with, “Harry also had a metal box with him, filled with hundred dollar bills. He swears it’s his money. He’s being held for kidnapping Patti. They’re letting her go even though it will be a crime against humanity.”

As we walked up the drive toward the house, I laughed at that, the first time in recent memory. “And Holly?”

“She’ll be on her way home within the hour.”

I studied my man. “When that shot went off, I was so scared.”

“Ben saved the day.”

Ah, what a canine champion. I paused to scratch his head. “Sorry about how our day together turned out,” Hunter said.

“It isn’t over yet. I want to do a little digging in a garden.”

Hunter looked confused by that, but he followed me into Holly’s rose garden. I pulled out the pitchfork that was sticking out of the ground and went to work using it like a rake around the rosebushes.

A soiled pair of gloves emerged from the earth. I’d bet my blouse that Jackson Davis would find evidence of water hemlock when he examined them.

Spiders, my foot.

We also found a hole in the ground, about the right size for another rosebush to go in. Or for a metal money box to come out.

We invited everybody involved over for burgers.
Master griller Max would handle the hamburgers, cooking them to absolute perfection. Holly made the concession to actually enter my backyard. Of course that was only after I reminded her that bees don’t fly at night.

Milly, shocked to learn that her new friend was a murderess, recovered enough to volunteer to bring her potato salad, which is the best in the world.

Carrie Ann and the twins weren’t overlooked, either. We were prepared to feed them once they closed the store. “Bring Gunnar and the kids, too,” I told my cousin.

Hunter went over to The Wild Clover and picked up the meat and buns. Ben approved of his selection, and later had the burger I’d promised him.

Stanley Peck showed up with his homemade honey mead, which he makes in his bathtub. I failed to mention that fact to the others, considering it might turn off a few of the guests. I even went out on a limb and sampled it myself. Delish.

Max showed off his company’s latest flavor experiment by picking a bunch of endive from my garden and sprinkling it with Savour Foods’ latest discovery. I thought I tasted extra sweetness, but the product has a ways to go. Great concept, though.

Patti slipped through the cedar hedge. In spite of her annoying ways, we were all grateful she was okay. “I’d have gotten free eventually,” she said, and we all believed her.

While we ate, Hunter and I filled in a few holes, some of those holes of the rose garden variety.

“Effie didn’t want anybody to notice the area in the rose garden where she’d recently dug,” I said, “so she made up the spider story.”

“Which really worked,” Holly added.

I went on. “She buried the gloves she’d used to pick the water hemlock in the same general area where she also buried some of the cash she’d stolen from Harry. Fifty grand of it. Harry claims she took more than that, but if she did, she isn’t saying.”

“How did he find out where she was hiding?” Stanley asked.

“Nova,” Hunter told us. “She made good on her threat that very first night.” Hunter looked at me and said, “Phone records prove it, and Harry confirmed the call.”

I hadn’t liked Nova, but felt a pang of sadness for her. “If only Effie had known that she was too late. Nova would still be alive.”

Hunter looked over at Patti. “Effie knew exactly who you were the entire time.”

Patti shook her head. “I never met her when I lived in Chicago.”

“No, but she knew you and used that to her advantage, setting out to frame you. It sure helped that you’d forgotten your water bottle over there. What could be more believable than one ex-wife killing the other?” Hunter reached over and took my hand in his.

Holly jumped in. “That’s amazing how she put together such a complicated scheme in only one night. Imagine if she’d actually preplanned. I can’t believe a murderer lived in my carriage house!”

“I can’t believe I considered her a friend,” Milly said sadly. “What happened to Chance? Is he okay?”

“He has a brother in Waukesha,” Hunter told us. “He’s staying there for the time being.”

I still had one more question. “How did Effie get Nova to drink out of Patti’s travel mug? I mean, she wasn’t exactly the pro-stalker type.”

As always we looked to Hunter for the answer. “That morning when nobody could find Nova,” he said. “She was meeting with Effie in the carriage house. Effie begged her to reconsider her threat to expose her, Nova laughed in her face, not bothering to mention that she’d already set Harry in motion.”

“Maybe she was afraid Effie would run,” Patti added.

We all thought that was probably one of the reasons, but I could see Nova mocking her just to be nasty.

Hunter continued. “Anyway, Effie already had the poisoned juice in the water bottle, and she knew exactly how Nova would react when she mentioned that she’d helped herself to the juice in the refrigerator.”

Holly piped up, saying, “Nobody, but nobody, touched Nova Campbell’s juice. Or her personal belongings, or anything else that she owned. She was ultra-selfish. That’s why Gil put her name on the jar, to keep the peace.”

Max shook his head at that. “I can just see her, grabbing the bottle away.”

“Which she did,” Hunter said. “Then told Effie to stay away from things that didn’t belong to her. And drank it right down in front of Effie, actually throwing the empty bottle at her. While you were gone, Effie placed it on Nova’s nightstand.”

Patti leaned in. “She must have really hated it when the cops went after Holly instead of me.” Her eyes went to Max, then back to Holly. “You aren’t going to really sue me, are you? Once I get my job back, I’ll write something nice to make up for it.”

Holly laughed. “The only way we will consider letting it go, is if you promise
not
to write anything more about our family.”

Patti thought that was a pretty good deal.

So that’s what went on at my house following the arrest of Effie Anderson for the murder of Nova Campbell and a whole host of other charges for attempting to kill Johnny Jay and me.

May she rot in jail.

Oh, there was one more incident worth mentioning.

Right before Max threw the burgers on the grill, Grams Fleetwood pulled up on the street out front. I couldn’t see her from the backyard, but when metal hits metal and Grams is expected, there’s only one conclusion.

We rushed to the street just as Mom was getting out of the passenger’s seat. Grams had run right into Lori Spandle’s realty car as Lori and a new perspective buyer stood in the yard next door.

I won’t go into how potty mouth Lori is, or how Mom went to town on everybody in sight, including the poor people who’d just wanted to look at the house (they decided against buying it, obviously), and I won’t mention some of the threats that were flung around or how Stanley almost went for his concealed weapon.

The important part is when Tom Stocke pulled up, rushed to my mother right in front of everybody, got down on his knee, and proposed to Mom right on the spot.

Just then, at that exact moment, Hunter moved up behind me. He wrapped his arms around me in a big bear hug, and while we witnessed Mom’s blubbering and Tom’s pleading, in the end, Mom said yes.

We were one big happy family again.

For now.

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