BM03 - Crazy Little Thing Called Dead (25 page)

I sat on the edge of the bed, furious. What right did Richard Hambecker have to tell me how to feel? “Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. What the hell, Hambecker?”

“Now there’s a sentiment I can get behind. I’ll be back in a minute and you can swear at me some more.” He left the room.

“Well, shit.” And then I started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Hambecker asked when he came back in with plastic wrap and medical tape.

“You. One minute you’re Mr. Sensitive the next you’re a Drill Sergeant. I have no idea who you are at any given moment. It’s funny as hell. Hey! Take it easy with the medical tape.” I smacked his hand away. “Give me that.”

“Go get in the shower. We’ve got stuff to do.”

Chapter Sixteen

Hambecker, Meg and Tom were sitting at the kitchen table when I came down stairs. I rummaged in the cupboard for some Cheerios and a bowl and joined them. I spooned some cereal and milk into my mouth and asked, “So what’s up?” when I noticed them all staring at me.

“Don’t let my kids see you talking with your mouth full,” Tom said. “Disgusting.”

“Sorry,” I said, my mouth full of cereal.

Hambecker laughed. I grinned at him. He was annoying, but I liked him anyway. I swallowed.

“I want to go back up to the farm today. Did Steve bring my truck here?” I asked.

“It’s at the barracks, but Richard and I will go pick it up later. You weren’t thinking of driving yourself up there were you?” Tom asked.

I shrugged.

“I’ll take you up there,” Meg said, “If you promise you’ll write something today. I’m holding the front page for you.”

“It’s written. I just have to email it to you. It’s big though, you might want to break it in two or something.” I’d finished it before I’d left, in case I didn’t come back.

“You might as well let me take her up,” Hambecker broke in. “I’m not supposed to let her out of my sight.”

“24/7?” Jeremy asked, walking in from the living room. “Man, that’s rough.” He grabbed some orange juice from the fridge and wandered back out again. I stuck my tongue out at his retreating back.
Teenagers
.

“That’s fine for today, Bree,” Tom said, “but at some point we need to discuss the ramifications of being on the mob’s bad side.”

“Do they have a good side?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“No. And that’s the point. You’re on their radar.” Hambecker said. “Ledroit’s trial won’t come up for at least six months, that’s a lot of time to stay vigilant.”

“What do you think I should do?” I put more cereal in my mouth.

“Road trip,” Meg said.

“But what about my job?” I asked.

“You can write on the road,” she said.

“A little hard to write about what’s happening in South Royalton when I’m not here, don’t you think?” I put another spoonful of food in my mouth. I was really, really hungry today. I was feeling lighter than I had since the fire.

“You can do editorial pieces. Politics. Review the places you’ve been – we won’t run them until you’re long gone from them,” Meg said.

“No.” Hambecker said. “Too easy to extrapolate our route. No travel pieces.”

“I could do travel pieces about places we don’t go. Spain, say, and then Moscow,” I said.

“We’re off track again,” Tom said. “You need a plan, and you need it soon. I’d say you have a day or two at most before they come after you.”

“Can I go up to the farm first? I know you are all here at the table ready to make a plan, but I think better up there. And I want to check on Lucky.”

Tom nodded and got up. “I’ve got to get to work anyway. Bring her to the barracks when she’s done,” he said to Hambecker.

“I’m coming with you,” Meg said. “I want to be in on the planning session. I don’t trust men not to miss an important detail.”

The group around the table dispersed: Tom to work; Meg, Hambecker and I to Hambecker’s SUV. The blackened shell of my home hadn’t gotten any easier to look at, but I dashed the tears away and moved over to the grave. Someone had spray painted the rocks with gold metallic paint. It was like a pile of over-sized gold nuggets.

“Who did this?” Meg asked.

“I don’t know, but I would assume Max or one of his grandkids. It’s something he would do.” I knelt down to pick up a rock that had slipped from the pile. “Can I have a minute?”

Me and Hambecker moved away and I put the stone back, leaving my hand resting on the warmth of the rock. I could feel my dogs around me, and Annabelle Cat too. Peace settled over me. Hambecker was right; they wouldn’t want me to eat myself up with guilt. I’d done what I could about the person who murdered them. It was time to take care of myself.

“What do you think I should do about this?” I asked, as I joined Meg and Hambecker gazing at the house. “Rebuild, sell, leave it? What?”

“Tom thinks you should use some of the insurance money to buy one of those little RVs. You could travel around looking at different housing options so that when you come back you’ll have an idea of what to build.”

“Hambecker and I in an RV for six months. That ought to be interesting.” Hell on wheels, I was guessing.

I went to sit on the pasture fence looking out over the valley. Lucky looked up from grazing and came to put his muzzle in my hand. I rubbed his head under his forelock, and pulled on his ears. He leaned his head into me, the way he always had. Footsteps rustled the grass behind me and Max came to stand beside me.

“I hear you’ll be going off for a while,” he said.

“Yeah, guess I have to.” I rubbed the tips of Lucky’s ears.

“Don’t you be worrying about your boy here,” he nodded his head in Lucky’s direction, “I’ll be taking good care of him.”

“I know you will, Max. I’m sorry I won’t be here to help with the horses.”

“You remember when Mary was in the hospital with the cancer? You looked after the horses then, and more. All the animals up at t’house. I can take care of this one little pony for you.” He laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks, Max.” I leaned my head on his hand.

“You just take care of yourself, you hear? Don’t let those people be getting hold of you.” He took a sugar cube from his pocket and let Lucky nuzzle it out of his hand.

“That’s the plan,” I said.

“Do you want me to have the house pulled down while you’re away? We can get it ready for you to rebuild when you’re ready.” He leaned against the fence, looking over the valley.

“I’d like that Max.”

“I’ll get the Browns in to take it down. They’ll have to do something special with those shingles, I suppose. But they’ll know what to do.” He slapped his hand on the rail, like he’d made an important decision.

“Sounds good.” I climbed off the fence and took a last look at the view. “I’ll see you in a few months then.” I hugged him.

“I had that skunk’s stink gland removed. You want to take him with you?” he asked.

“Won’t he be unhappy, cooped up in a motor-home all day?” The thought of Stripes made me smile.

“I doubt it. He’s been spending the last couple of weeks sitting in Mary’s lap while she watches TV. I asked if she wanted to keep him, but she can’t get used to having a wild animal in the house. He’d be happy with you. I’ll bring him down to Meg’s for you, when I come to say goodbye.” He said.

I nodded my throat tight from the thought of saying goodbye to Max.

“Now don’t you be crying. It’s not forever. In another year it will all be back to normal.” He hugged me and turned away, making his way back up the hill to his home.

I hoped he was right. I had a feeling that trials involving the mob didn’t always go smoothly. Some poor soul would probably shoot me coming out of the courthouse because Ledroit had promised to take care of his family if he killed me. If they didn’t get to me before then. I wondered how the trial would go without my testimony. They had Victor; he was more important than I was.

I spent a minute more soaking in the sunshine and the smell of long grass and horses. This had always been my favorite place in the world, now I was going to go looking for other places. Something to replace the house that I had loved.

I sighed, and joined Meg and Hambecker at the SUV. “I’m ready.”

I took one last look around before I got in the car. I would never feel the same about this place again. That made me sad. But it made it a hell of a lot easier to leave.

***

The plan, when it came together, was simple. A small RV with my motorcycle strapped to a trailer on the back. No phone. Except for Hambecker who had one so that his boss could contact him. I could email Tom who would cut and paste my messages to my family, and then send them along, but no phone calls not even from payphones. Not that there were many of those left around. Beans and Stripes would go with us, although Tom thought long and hard about vetoing Stripes. Tom thought Stripes would make us too memorable, but I promised to keep him out of sight.

I went online in the incident room, clicking around, looking for an RV I might actually like the look of. There were some really cool, space age looking RVs, and some funky, gypsy caravan-like contraptions built into pickup trucks but Hambecker vetoed them.

“Need to blend in. Think bland, ordinary,” he said, then he went back to talking to Tom.

“Bland
schmand
,” I muttered under my breath, and switched my focus to vehicles that were plain on the outside but unique on the inside. I was not living in an ugly motor home. Meg came to sit beside me.

“They’re ugly,” I said. “Truly ugly.”

“Just get a generic one and I’ll help you decorate the inside. You could pick up little things to add in each of the places you stop,” she said.

“Uh-huh. That’d be me. Driving around the country in a vehicle stuffed full of knickknacks and one really cranky Federal Agent.” I snorted.

“You don’t sound too happy about this.”

“Would you be?” I asked.

“No. But I’ve got the kids to take care of.” She bit her lips as if she thought she’d said the wrong thing.

“It just doesn’t seem like me, driving around like a snail with my house on my back. We should be taking the train across America, or riding bikes.” I could picture myself on a motorcycle pulling a little trailer, just big enough to sleep in. But where would the animals sit? Especially in bad weather.

“Motorcycles or bicycles?” Meg asked.

“Both. Either. Doesn’t matter. A convertible, pulling a little tear-drop trailer. Not a motor-home. That’s for old people,” I said.

“You’re going to have trouble with the blending-in thing aren’t you?” She looked at me with something akin to pity.

“What do you think?” I asked, and then sighed. “I’ll do what it takes.

“Come on, Hambecker is driving us home,” Meg said.

“Call him The Hammer. He likes that.” I laughed.

“Really, you aren’t pulling my leg?” she asked.

“No, he likes it.” I kept a straight face.

When Meg called into Tom’s office “Hey Hammer Man, we’re ready to go home.”

Hambecker gave me a dirty look and said, “I’ll deal with you later.”

I experienced an obscene amount of glee from the exchange and sang in the car on the way home. He glared at me, but didn’t tell me to stop. I sang louder. Traveling with Hambecker had its possibilities.

***

The next morning, Meg and I were at the paper. Deirdre was putting the finishing touches on the front page, complete with a photo of me with raccoon eyes. We were going live with the online version of the story at midnight. The physical copy would be on the stands in the morning. The exclusive coverage of the murder and mayhem that would follow was going a long way to reassure our advertisers. Even the Valley News was going to have to wait to run the piece.

Lucy Howe waltzed in just as I was packing up to leave. “Bree, just the person I was hoping to see. Can I get an interview?” She smiled her sweetest, ass-kissing smile and I knew it was killing her to have to ask.

“What for?” I asked. I could see Meg laughing silently behind her computer.

“I’m working for the Valley News now,” Lucy said.

“Didn’t they tell you? They bought the piece direct from me. The Valley News already has it.” I looked at her as innocently as I could.

Lucy’s face turned bright red. She opened her mouth and closed it. “Well, fuck me,” she said, and turned on her heel and left. Her footsteps banged down the stairs.

“Someone’s in for an ass chewing,” Meg said. “I wouldn’t want to be the one in charge when she hits the newsroom.”

“I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall, though,” I said. “I bet you she goes ballistic.”

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and Tom came in and walked to Meg’s desk. “How’s it going, babe? Got the paper handled?” He dropped a kiss on her mouth and came over to sit at my desk. “Come on you two, we’ve got something to show you.”

Meg and I followed Tom downstairs. Parked against the green was the plainest brown, tan and almost white RV I’d ever seen. It wasn’t ugly so much as totally without personality. I sighed.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Come see the inside.” Tom grabbed Meg’s and my hand and towed us across the street. Hambecker appeared at the door, hopped down and slid out the steps.

“You’re kidding me,” I said. “You couldn’t find anything a little less bland than this?”

“Go inside and look.” Hambecker grinned at me.

I pulled myself up the steps and into another world. The interior was old world gypsy. The ceiling was rounded and paneled in golden pine. The woodwork and cabinets painted in bright reds, greens and gold designs. A heavy regal curtain hung below a carved bulkhead separating the living area from the bedroom. A gold fabric valance graced the window above the sink.

“It’s a gypsy caravan!” I laughed. “I’m a gypsy.”

I spotted the richly-upholstered couch and a hoot of pure joy escaped me. On the center cushion, curled around each other and sound asleep, were Beans and Stripes. The backs of my eyeballs got all tingly and I blinked hard.

“No waterworks, now.” Hammie pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. “Or I’ll have to do something stupid so you’ll want to kick my ass.”