Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (23 page)

“It wasn’t me!” Dave said quickly. “One of the guys smunched a few of your flowers
with the Bobcat. He’s really sorry, and we’ll pay for them to be replaced.”

I put my hand over my eyes. There had been several large turquoise clay pots artfully
placed in every bed. If the flowers had been smunched, that meant that at least one
of the pots was damaged too.

“Where?”

“The bed on the left side of the house. And some of the middle bed too. Also, maybe
some of those clay pots you had out there got broken.”

“Dave!”

“Abs, he’s really sorry! It was his first time driving the Bobcat and it kinda got
away from him.”

“Dude!” I yelled. “What the hell?”

Dave was silent for a minute. “You can tell Dutch that I’ll pay the quarter for that
one. We deserved it.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. “You better not tell me who
did it,” I warned him. “If I know, I’m gonna disinvite him to the wedding.”

“He feels so bad he won’t show,” Dave assured. “Probably.”

I blew out a sigh. “Okay, and you said you needed the bug guy too? Are the scorpions
back?” Inwardly I shuddered and thought that if those creepy-crawlies had come back,
I was
not
moving into that house.

“No scorpions,” Dave said. “But all that rain we got last week brought out a whole
bunch of crickets, and a few got into your house. Unless you want to listen to chirping
all night, I think you should have the bug man come back out and give it a good spray.”

“Fine,” I told him, lifting my eyes to Dutch, who was still staring at me with raised,
expectant brows. “But you’re sure we can close next Tuesday? That’s only five days
away, you know, and if I call the title company to set up the closing, it’s a huge
pain in the ass…ter…isk to get it rescheduled.”

“Tuesday?” Dutch mouthed.

I nodded as Dave said, “Go ahead and schedule it. We’ll be ready.”

I hung up with Dave and promptly called the title company. They were happy to fit
us in for Tuesday morning. I then called my landscaper, who was not happy to hear
that his hard work had been ruined, but he looked at his book and said he could swing
by the next day to assess the damage and offer me a quote to fix it.

In parting he let me know how pleased he was to have been invited to my wedding. I
had to force myself to speak in pleasant tones and tell him that we were looking forward
to seeing him there.

When I hung up, I glared at Dutch—like it was his fault.

“Is there anyone she didn’t invite?” he asked me, ignoring my stony countenance.

“We’re about to find out,” I muttered as I dialed Russ, the bug guy.

“Hey, Miss Cooper!” he said jovially.

“Hey, Russ,” I said. “Listen, I just heard from my builder. Seems like the house has
a few loose crickets inside. Can you take care of that?”

“Does tonight at six work? I’m on that side of town this afternoon.”

I looked at my watch. “Well, I’m up in College Station working a case right now, so
that might be a little tight, but if I can’t make it, then I’ll have Dave, my construction
manager, meet you.”

“Cool,” he said. And then he hesitated and I knew that he was probably dancing around
the wedding invite. After clearing his throat a couple of times, he said, “Thanks
a lot for inviting me to your wedding, Miss Cooper.”

He sounded so sweetly grateful that I immediately felt bad for not wanting him to
attend. “Are you coming, Russ?”

“I think so, yeah,” he said. “But is it okay if it’s only me?”

I sensed that Russ—a rather husky, baby-faced man who killed bugs for a living and
preferred Jim Butcher novels to social interaction—might have trouble finding a date
on short notice. “Of course it’s okay. Come. You’ll have a great time, and I’m pretty
sure there’ll be other single people there too, so not to worry.”

I could sense that he was both a little embarrassed and maybe happy that I’d told
him there would be other people there without a plus one. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks
so much, and I’ll see you tonight.”

After I hung up with Russ, I felt a little better. Dealing with
the everyday headaches of my personal life helped to ground me, and remind me that
although I was working a horrendously awful case, my life went on. Belatedly I noticed
that Dutch and Candice had already finished eating, and my Reuben sandwich with a
side of sweet potato fries was mostly untouched.

I took a few quick bites, knowing we were pressed for time, and motioned for us to
get going. “You sure you don’t want a to-go box?” Candice asked. (Somewhat mockingly,
I thought. Her lunch had been heavy on produce—light on saturated fats.)

“I’m sure,” I told her, eyeing my watch and noting the time again. It was nearly one
o’clock. “We’ve got people to interview and only a few hours to do it in before I
have to get back.”

With that, Dutch paid the bill and we were on our way.

“D
own on the ground! Hands behind your heads!”
shouted the cop holding the gun on everyone gathered outside the redbrick house where
Brody Watson was staying.

M.J. dropped immediately to her knees, shoving her hands high in the air. “Don’t shoot!”
she heard Gilley cry. “I’m innocent!
I’m innocent!
”

“I don’t care if you’re Mother Teresa! Get down on the motherfu—”

“I’m down!” Gilley shrieked, falling face-first to the ground. “I’m down!”

M.J. lowered herself the rest of the way to the pavement, lacing her fingers behind
her head. She then turned her head to the side and saw that Dutch was still standing,
but at least he had his hands raised above his head.

“I said get down!”
the cop screamed, pointing his gun directly at Dutch.

“I’m a federal officer!” Dutch yelled back, refusing to drop.

“Like I said, I don’t care if you’re Mother Teresa! Get down on the ground!
Now!
”

M.J. kept her gaze on Dutch and she trembled. They were wasting precious time here
and his resisting the officer’s command was only wasting more time. At last, however,
Dutch got down on both knees, but he refused to prostrate himself like the rest of
them. That seemed to really frustrate both officers. Ignoring everyone else, they
marched over to Dutch and shoved him violently. He dropped easily the rest of the
way to the ground, but in a move almost too quick to catch he rolled over, kicked
the gun out of the hand of the first officer, grabbed the pistol of the other, and
twisted the hand holding it in such a way that he managed to pull it free.

It all happened so fast that M.J. could hardly believe it. In another lightning-fast
move, Dutch was on his feet and pointing the weapon at both the officers. “Down on
your knees!” he commanded. The stunned cops immediately complied, throwing their own
hands up in the air and kneeling down on the ground. Dutch then moved in to the side
of one officer and pulled up on a set of handcuffs from his belt. He tossed these
next to Candice. “Cuff him!” he ordered.

“Shit,” Candice muttered as she climbed to her feet, picked up the gun that’d been
kicked to the side along with the handcuffs. “Can we talk about this?” she asked Dutch,
who looked so angry that M.J. didn’t want to make a false move.

“Later,” he growled. “Cuff him, Candice, or I’ll do it myself.” Reluctantly Candice
secured the first cop’s hands while Dutch grabbed a set of zip ties off the belt of
the other cop and tossed one of these to Candice. “And now the other one.”

“Dutch—,” she began.

“Do it!”

Candice moved behind the second cop and secured his hands too. The minute the two
officers were restrained, Dutch undid each of their utility belts and tossed them
over his shoulder. Then
he grabbed Brody by the collar and motioned with his gun for M.J., Candice, and Gilley
to follow him.

M.J. exchanged a look with Candice and whispered, “Did this just go from really bad
to WTF?”

“Just do as he says,” Candice whispered back. “We’ll get it sorted out later.”

Dutch shoved Brody into the front seat, and Candice got in next to the poor kid. M.J.
pulled Gilley up off the ground and said, “Get in the car, Gil.”

“I’d rather stay here,” he said meekly.

M.J. looked over at the cops, who were each wearing murderous looks on their faces.
“No, you wouldn’t,” she told him. “And we don’t have time to argue about it. Get in
the car right now.”

With that, they slipped into the backseat and Dutch started the engine, roaring away
from the curb with squealing tires.

All M.J. could think about as the smell of burning rubber filled the air was the many
laws they’d just broken—from assaulting an officer to kidnapping…. They were in some
serious trouble now. And their only way out lay in finding Abby.

M.J. didn’t want to go to jail—she’d been there once before and she frankly hadn’t
cared for it. So she leaned forward and said, “Brody, I know you’re scared, but you
and I need to work together. I’ve still got your mother with me, and she keeps insisting
that there was some sort of argument involving this Margo woman. Please, if you want
Dutch to let you go…if you want to see Abby alive again…please, think.”

Brody, who’d been sitting stiffly in his seat, eyed her in the rearview mirror and
she could see his fear, his anger, but then…something else. Some tiny spark had lit
up in his eyes and he said, “You know what? There was something….”

O
ur knock was answered by a woman with no spark left in her dull, sad eyes. The mother
with the toddler in the video from the mall was named Janice McCaffrey, and she lived
in a large stone and brick home in a newer subdivision not far from the Texas A&M
campus. She answered the door dressed in flannel pj’s and a big terry cloth robe.
I would be lying if I didn’t say that the poor woman looked like hell. “Yes?” she
croaked. She’d obviously been crying, and there were bandages on both her arms. A
streak of toothpaste at the corner of her mouth told me she hadn’t even bothered to
look in the mirror while brushing her teeth. I wondered if she’d actually just rolled
out of bed, or hadn’t moved much since doing so earlier in the day.

Dutch introduced us, holding up his badge for her to study. Her eyes moved slowly
from him, to the badge, to the bulletproof vest he wore, to Candice, back to the vest,
over to me, and back to his badge again. I had a feeling she hadn’t really registered
any of it. “Did you find out why?” she asked him once he’d finished speaking. “Why
that girl tried to blow us up?”

That caught Dutch off guard. He opened his mouth, but sort
of turned to me, like, “What the hell should I say to that?” (Swearing doesn’t count
when you’re simply interpreting your fiancé’s expression.)

“Mrs. McCaffrey,” I said, stepping forward. “Can we come in for a few minutes?”

She ran her tongue over her lips nervously and tugged at the collar of her bathrobe.
“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” she said.

I suspected that the inside of her house was probably much like her—unkempt and in
need of a good scrub.

“We won’t stay long,” I assured her. When she still hesitated, I added, “Please? It’s
really important.”

She gave a curt nod and opened the door just enough for us to enter. The minute we
were through the entry, I could see that my suspicions were correct; the place looked
like a small tornado had been through it.

There were clothes, dirty dishes, toys, and even some garbage littering the place.
A small scruffy dog came ambling out of the kitchen area to sniff moodily at our feet.
I waited until he stopped inspecting my shoes to move over to a cane chair in the
corner of the living room.

Dutch and Candice looked around for a place to sit, but there was very little available
unless they wanted to brush aside the dirty clothes or garbage. After a quick exchange
of looks, they each took up an at-ease stance on either side of me.

Meanwhile, Janice shuffled over to the one spot on the couch that was clear of clutter
and plopped down with a heavy sigh. “You’re here about the mall, right?”