Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) (9 page)

“Such as,” I passed him a copy of Elspie’s employment application, “I didn’t know until I finally found her employee file that she wasn’t a part of the Vegas Montecito team.”

“Sure she is.”

“No, No Hair. She’s not. She went to work the day they did, but she’s out of New Orleans. Not Vegas.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Elspeth’s federal, too.”

We sat silently while that sank all the way in.

“Well, Levi Newman hired her himself.” No Hair pointed to the signature on the application he was holding. I passed him a second employee application, exact same information, but this one signed by Richard Sanders himself.

“I’ll be damned.”

“She snuck in the backdoor, No Hair.”

“I knew something was up with that girl.”

“You were right.”

“And if you’re right,” No Hair said, “and she’s federal, she sure has a good cover.”

“Doesn’t she?” #PurpleEyedWithEnvy

“If Elzbath’s federal, and the roommate is FATF, and they’re working together” he said, “then we have someone coming in on a big-time watch list.”

“Exactly.”

“Did you run these Jennings people through Homeland Security?”

“And the Terrorists Watch List,” I said. “They’re not on either.”

“Are there any international players coming in for Strike?”

“No,” I said, “as far as I know, there aren’t. But I’m looking harder and I’ve set up alerts.”

We quietly contemplated scary stuff.

No Hair pushed away from his desk. (Meeting almost over.) “Let’s not jump the gun here, Davis. It could be exactly what it looks like. Which right now isn’t much.”

I agreed. The Jennings may be cheats, and we took down cheats every day of the week. I could catch and apprehend Cassidy Banking in my sleep. And I totally bought into the reasonable explanation as to why Brianna Strother would be in our neck of the woods. (Bananas.)

More curious, and a larger problem, is if Elspeth actually is a federal employee. In what capacity? Why is she here?

I have a funny feeling. Which could be the low-grade nausea I’ve been dragging around since I found out I’ve been married to Eddie Crawford the Rat Bastard all these years. But something going down at the Bellissimo was definitely adding to it. A life rule of mine: Never ignore a funny feeling. Another life rule of mine: Don’t tell No Hair my suspicions are based on funny feelings. Historically, he wasn’t impressed.

“Let me ask you something, No Hair.”

We paused at the door.

“Why’d you put me on Elspeth to begin with?”

His hand dropped from the doorknob.

“You suspected something was going on with her, right?”

He rubbed his whiskery jaw. A No Hair move that meant he was choosing his words carefully, knowing if he misled me or withheld information and it came to light later, I’d feed them to him. He said, “I had a funny feeling.”

*     *     *

I had a James Bond pen.

It looked like a normal Bic, something you’d accidentally swipe from a cashier, but this abnormal Bic had a GPS tracking device in it that fed straight to my cell phone. Time was a wastin’, and I didn’t have time to go through hours and hours of surveillance feed tracking Hashtag Elspie’s every move, nor did I have time to traipse through the employee parking garage three miles away and tag her car.

I love my job. I love the people, the casino, the clothes, the work, and I love the cool spy toys.

Elspie would be supervising plié pulses about now. I made my way to the rehearsal room behind the theater to (drop a cool spy toy in her big black bag) make up a reason why I’d be off property for the next five hours. No, I did not plan on telling her the truth.

I pushed through the swinging door to see everyone in workout clothes, but no one working out. The ballet music was on. Fantasy was stretched across the slick wood floor sleeping. Two or three waitresses were huddled in a corner drinking coffee and gossiping. Several more were scattered around the room poking on their phones. Baylor was in the middle of the dance floor on his knees straddling a blonde waitress splayed out beneath him, either giving her a back rub or counting her freckles. I couldn’t tell.

“Where’s Elspeth?” I asked.

“She didn’t show.” Fantasy only moved her lips. The rest of her stayed asleep.

“You,” I pointed. “Gold cowboy boots. Get off that girl. You’re coming with me.”

Baylor looked at me as if I were interrupting brain surgery. “I’m not done here.”

“Oh, yes you are.”

*     *     *

@LuckyStrikePlayers Are you ready to #StrikeItRich? Everyone ready for the VIP #StrikeParty tomorrow night?

TEN

Smerle T. Webb got his law degree off the back of a box of Froot Loops. There’s no other reasonable explanation, because there’s no way an institute of higher learning would have agreed to him practicing law if they’d actually met him. Or maybe Smerle T. had it together way back when, and it was a Teflon, or an oxygen-deprivation situation, that happened
after
he got his law degree, rendering him barely able to sit up and feed himself, much less practice law. Thankfully, the good people of Pine Apple, Alabama didn’t need that much legal advice, because the only trick we had up our sleeve was Smerle T., and he couldn’t cross the street without instigating a four-car pileup and three fistfights. He certainly couldn’t mediate any manner of dispute or adequately represent anyone in a court of law. Smerle T. was a constant
source
of conflict all over Wilcox County, and his courtroom deficiencies were forever landing his clients in more trouble once they got in front of the judge than they ever were to begin with. Smerle T. had a lucrative real estate side business going on, too, constantly stirring it up between neighbors, then raking in all the closing costs when he talked everyone into playing musical chairs with their mobile homes. He would wait awhile, then stoke the fires again, and talk everyone back where they were to begin with. Smerle T. stayed busy. If you think that’s something and your life insurance is paid up, you ought to make an appointment with Pine Apple’s only physician, Dr. Cliff Kizzy. I went to him once for a quick tetanus shot after I had an unfortunate collision with a possum trap and almost lost my arm. To the tetanus shot. Not the possum trap.

His secretary answered. “JoElla, it’s Davis Way. I need to talk to Smerle T.”

“He says he’s not in.”

“Tell him I need to sue someone.”

“Holt on.”

Only in Pine Apple do you holt on to sue someone.

I heard him suck in a huge breath. “Smerle T. Webb, the law is on my side.”

“Smerle, it’s Davis Way.”

“Well, if this isn’t my lucky day. Davis Way! How in the wide world are you, young lady?”

“I want to talk to you about my grandmother’s divorce.”

“Hold your horses, there, Davis. You know I can’t discuss ongoing litigation with you. I don’t care if it is your grandmother.”

I heard clicks and a ding. Smerle T. was winding up the avocado green kitchen timer he kept on his desk for billing purposes. “Smerle,” I said, “I am not your client. Do not charge me for this phone call.”

“Time is money, young lady. And you are my client. I’ve got a file on you right here.”

“Yeah, Smerle? Well, you’re fired. I’m on my way to get my file.”

“Now, you holt on there one minute, sassy pants.”

“Don’t you sassy pants me, Smerle. I’ve had it with you.”

“I am an innocent party here! All I did was answer the phone, and I’m getting fired?”

“Get my paperwork together, Smerle. I’ll be there in an hour.”

My driver didn’t look overly enthusiastic about stopping by my attorney’s office. “It’s on the way,” I told him. “Ten minutes, tops.”

“Yippee,” Baylor deadpanned. He added one drop of enthusiasm and asked, “What was the point of that exercise?”

I yawned. “I need that file without him going around town telling everyone I asked for it.” I yawned again. “Baylor? I’m going to rest my eyes for ten minutes, okay?”

When I woke up, we were in Birmingham.

*     *     *

I bolted upright, searched for landmarks, then screamed. “You missed the exit!” Baylor was drumming on the steering wheel with Beats earbuds plugged into his brains. I yanked out the one I could reach and the air was flooded with rap music. “You missed the exit, Baylor! By about a hundred miles!”

He pulled the other earbud out. “My bad.”

“You think?” This is the guy who No Hair assures me has my back.

I looked at my watch. Noon. I looked at my phone. Fourteen text messages, seven missed calls, and one voicemail. “Pull over, Baylor. Let me figure out where we are.” Thirty seconds later, on a sigh, “I didn’t mean pull over on the shoulder, Baylor. I meant pull over at the next exit.”

I swear.

The next exit was Trussville. We were on the
other
side of Birmingham.

Baylor spotted, pulled into, parked, and made a run for the border. Every single day of his life, the boy eats a #3 Special from Taco Bell: three Taco Supremes.

I speed dialed No Hair. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“I’m sitting at my computer watching the dot that is you, Davis, and I will believe it, but let me guess. You decided to drive to the place where the Christmas tree people live and check it out since it was right up the road.”

I watched Baylor in the rear-view mirror crossing the parking lot with a drink the size of an Igloo cooler dispenser. “You guessed it.” It wasn’t a bad idea. We were only an hour away from Fort Payne, thank you very much, Baylor. And it was a better idea than telling No Hair I’d been sleeping on the job while Baylor drove the brand-new Bellissimo-issue Town Car, which I’d signed out as Amy Medina without putting Baylor on the driver list.

I drove, because I knew where we were going, because of insurance and liability, and because Baylor was busy squirting Fire Sauce on his tacos. I lectured while he ate: responsibility, sexually transmitted diseases, following directions, punctuality, respect, reliability, flossing daily for gum health. “I worry, Baylor, that one of these days, we’re going to get in a really tight spot, and I’m going to need you, and you’ll be off in La La Land. You’ve got to be more
alert
. You’re missing the forest for the trees. I have to be able to count on you.”

His only response: “I heard you were getting married.”

I was exhausted from trying to talk him into growing up.

One right off the main drag in Fort Payne onto North Valley Avenue, then one left in the direction of Lickskillet, and we were at the base of the Cumberland Plateau.

“Someone lives up there?” Baylor asked.

“We’ll see.”

The road was steep with hairpin turns and one wide gravel lane. I couldn’t see past the first curve, and the tree cover was so dense I had to take off my sunglasses.

“What’s that ladder?” Baylor asked.

“Did you grow up in downtown Philly, Baylor? That’s a tree stand. Deer hunters get in it and shoot Bambi’s mother.”

“That’s so not cool for the deer.”

“And that’s a hunting blind,” I pointed, “same purpose. The hunter can see the deer, the deer can’t see the hunter. And that’s,” I craned to get a better look, “I’m not sure what that is.” It looked like a park ranger watchtower. After the tenth steep curve, elevation Mt. Everest, we finally saw the edges of the tree farm.

“What the hell is this place?”

“It’s a Christmas tree farm, Baylor. Can’t you smell the Christmas trees?”

He lowered his window. “Uh, Davis. I need to smell one up close and personal.”

“Are you kidding me? Could you not have said something back in civilization? Are you
twelve
?”

He ran over the river and through the woods in the direction of yet another elaborate tree stand. This one, a cabin on stilts in the middle of a Christmas forest. The deer around here didn’t stand a chance.

The trees formed thick lines on both sides of the road. They were planted in a modified zigzag line to accommodate the terrain, and they digressed in size. The trees closest to the road looked ready to decorate. The trees behind were progressively smaller; they stair stepped down in size for as far as I could see. The only thing that struck me as odd was the one-lane gravel road leading to all this Christmas cheer. Transport had to be an absolute nightmare. And what happened when one truck was going to the farm and another was coming from? There was no way two flatbed trucks could share this road.

I rolled down my window, and a cross-breeze of Christmas Day filled the car. Then I heard, “DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!” and Baylor filled the car. All of Baylor. He dove headlong through the passenger window with such momentum, that he’d have flown straight out my window and landed in the gravel on the other side of the car had my body and the steering wheel not stopped him.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” he screamed into my lap.

My hands were in the air and I was screaming bloody murder. He had me pinned down and he broke at least twenty five of my ribs as he tried to right himself and get to the gun at his hip.

“What the holy hell, Baylor!”

Just then, a loud spray of gravel caught the passenger side of the car. Baylor was halfway out the window returning gravel.

We were taking fire.

I made a dangerously fast three-point turn that stirred up enough dust for cover, but the shooter knew exactly where we were. I tore down that mountain in a hail of bullets. I was as low in the seat as I could go; I could taste metal; I had it on the floorboard; I straight-lined it through the curves. Baylor grabbed for and dumped my purse, then two seconds later, he was out the window again emptying my gun.

I covered the seven miles of vertical mountain pass in six minutes. We’d lost the rear window, the back bumper, and the car’s electrical system.

On cue, the sky opened up, and a monsoon rain descended out of nowhere.

I backed into a self-serve carwash on the edge of town for shelter, threw it in park, hid behind one hand, and batted for Baylor with the other. “Are you okay? Are you hit?”

“I’ve never. Seen. So much pot. In my life.”

“What?” I was panting. It might be tomorrow before I caught my breath.

“They’re growing, Davis. Right past the trees. It’s not a Christmas farm, it’s a pot farm. There’s a shit-ton of pot in those woods. Pot plants as big as the Christmas trees. There’s a million dollars of pot in those Christmas trees.”

*     *     *

A sad truth about Alabama: A car on the interstate with a bright blue duct-taped tarp for a back window, missing its bumper, license plate, three hubcaps and both side mirrors, riddled with bullet holes, side panels crushed, driven in the pouring down rain with the windows wide open by two people wearing Roll Tide rain ponchos, didn’t attract attention. Sad, sad.

“I’m never coming back here,” Baylor said.

We finally drove out of the weather after the first of our three-hour trek to Pine Apple. Baylor held it in the road while I climbed out of the poncho.

“Uh, Davis,” he said. “You might want to check out your hair.”

We had no mirrors whatsoever. I don’t know what happened to the rear-view mirror. I pulled a handful of my hair in front of my face to watch the Chocolate Covered Bing Cherry temporary color drip into my lap. This couldn’t be pretty. Note to self: Don’t get spray color wet, then cook it under a plastic poncho hood for an hour.

“Check me over there, Baylor.”

Baylor hung out the passenger window. “You’re good.”

When we took exit 128 to Pine Apple, I said, “Listen, Baylor. It’d probably be best if I don’t run into anyone I know. Considering.”

He surveyed me and nodded agreement. “So you don’t want to try to ditch this car?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Smerle T.’s office was above the hardware store on Main Street. We took the back roads, which weren’t really roads at all. We took the back paths, and got rid of what was left of the paint on the Town Car. I rolled it to a stop behind the hardware store, then pulled the wet glob of Roll Tide poncho back on. So no one would recognize me. “See that car?” I pointed to a red Dodge Dart a hundred yards away. “There’s no doubt the keys are in it. Get all our stuff, get it running, aim it at Main Street,” I pointed, “and I’ll be back in three minutes.”

I climbed the back steps and quietly entered through the law office’s kitchenette. Smerle T.’s part-time secretary and full-time mistress JoElla was in the front room watching “The Young and The Beautiful” on an old portable television that looked like it weighed forty pounds. It had long silver antennas.

“JoElla? It’s Davis Way. Where’s Smerle T.?”

She didn’t tear her eyes away from the grainy daytime drama. “He’s at your daddy’s office,” she said, “complaining about you.”

“Did he leave anything for me?”

“He said,” and here she finally turned, got one look at me, and said, “holy crap Jesus, Davis. What happened to you?”

“Where’s that file?”

Her mouth hung wide open as she admired my new fugitive look.

There was a single stapled stack of papers on the desk between JoElla and the television. I took a giant leap, snatched it, then bolted for the back door. “Good to see you, JoElla!”

“He said you couldn’t take it, Davis!” She was on my heels. “Gimme that back here before I call the police!”

I turned at the kitchenette door and let her think about how stupid that was. Her brow furrowed as she considered calling my father to have him arrest me for taking my own divorce file from my lawyer’s office. I held it out. “Here, JoElla. Take it. But I’m calling Dusty.” Everyone in Wilcox County knew JoElla was doing everything but secretarial work for Smerle T. Except Jo Ella’s husband Dusty.

She looked like she’d seen a ghost. She reached for my arm instead of the file. “One of your eyes is purple, Davis,” she whispered.

Baylor revved the engine. I bolted down the rickety steps, poncho flying. JoElla shouted after me, “Smerle T. said if you showed up you couldn’t take that!”

Did he say anything about his car?

*     *     *

We parked the Dodge Dart at a meter on the street in Camden, a block past the courthouse.

The same court clerk was behind the desk who’d been there when Bradley and I were here Monday. She took note of our disheveled appearances, stretched her arms wide, then flipped them in a way that hyperextended her elbows. The noise was excruciating. “Rough day?” She rolled her arms back into their sockets.

I passed her the Eddie the Ass paperwork I’d cooked up, plus the divorce decree I’d swiped from Smerle T.’s office, and she studied it all way too long. So long, that I thought I’d lived through being gunned down in Lickskillet only to be locked up in Camden. I really should consider staying out of Alabama altogether and let things cool off. My phone buzzed. I gave it a glance. “Excuse me,” I said. “I need to step out in the hall and take this.” I gave Baylor a stay-put-and-watch-her look.

“Daddy.”

“Honey.” Daddy sounded tired. “Are you alive?”

“Yes.”

“Long story?”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to bring Smerle T.’s car back, and do you want me to send this one you left to Montgomery for processing?”

“I’ll get Smerle’s car back to him as soon as I can,” I said. “Tell him I said sorry, and don’t send the whole Town Car to the crime lab. If you could, Daddy, pull a slug out of it and have them run it.” It’s a miracle upon a miracle that I wasn’t able to reach up and pull a slug out of the back of my head for processing.

“Where
were
you, Sweet Pea?” Daddy asked. “What in the world happened?”

I glanced up and down the hall for nosy people, then through the doorway where the clerk was still studying the paperwork with a stern look on her face. “I was in DeKalb County, Daddy, and those people are crazy as all get-out.”

“Davis, stay out of DeKalb County starting right now.”

(No shit.)

“There’s a DEA task force sting going down there, right outside of Fort Payne, and you don’t want mixed up in that.”

No, I did not.

Wait a minute.

Had a division of the United States Federal Government just about killed me and Baylor?

“Good to know, Daddy. I love you.” I hung up my phone because the clerk had picked up hers. I rushed back in. “Do you have me ready?”

She dropped the phone and gave me the evil eye. “Here’s the problem.” She craned her neck until it clicked. Then the other way. Click, click. “This isn’t the address we sent the notification to. See here?” She flipped two pieces of paper and pushed them to me. “This here says Shady Acres, slip eighteen? But we sent the notice to Shady Acres slip thirty-two. These two should match.” She bounced a finger between the two sheets of paper. “I wonder why they don’t.”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Not a clue.”

“Something tells me you do.” She picked up the forged notice and held it up to the fluorescent lights. My life flashed before my eyes. As it had been doing. All. Day. Long.

“Do you know who lives in slip thirty-two?” she asked.

I do. I certainly do. “No. Not a clue.”

“That’s who got this notice.” She pushed up her sweater sleeves. One at a time. She bent over the counter and got in my face. “And that’s who I need to be talking to. You have whoever lives at this address here give me a ringy-dingy, let that person tell me your husband lived in Alabama at the time of the divorce, and then I’ll try to help you.” She shook the forged document in the forger’s face. “It doesn’t make any sense that the one you’re bringing in here isn’t the one we sent. Where’d you get this?”

I snatched it out of her hands, scooped up my unfinished divorce, and ran before she could study it, or me, one more second.

“What just happened there?” Baylor was on my heels. We were ten feet from the Dodge Dart. “Who lives at the other address?”

“My ex-ex-mother-in-law,” I panted. “Bea.”

*     *     *

Baylor and I took the back roads from Camden to Biloxi at a clip, tearing through LeMoyne, Saraland, and Pritchard, but backing off when we crossed into Mississippi, because I’d have to jump through too many hoops to get out of a reckless-endangerment-while-driving-a-stolen-car-citation in a state where my daddy wasn’t on the payroll. We made it in the doors of 3B as Fantasy was leaving.

“Oh, holy mother.” Fantasy dropped everything she was holding. “What happened to you two? Baylor, did you beat Davis up?”