Murder by Chance (Betty Chance Mystery) (19 page)

Betty held a printed sheet of bills in the air. “How do they get the bills to look old?”

“They’re dipped in iodine and whatever else they come up with. Look at the date on the bill.”

Tillie handed Betty the sheet.

“1988,” Betty read aloud.

“That’s because, after that, the feds have all sorts of do-dads to check any new currency. Like a security strip hidden in the paper next to Abe’s face. Look at the packaging on one of unopened reams of paper. Tell me who makes it.”

Betty slipped a ream from one of the shelving units. “I can’t tell. The printing on the packaging is foreign.”

“Exactly. This paper was probably made in China or Iran. The paper you buy at Office Max is made in the good old USA from wood pulp. The stuff Boris is using is made from cotton fiber, just like the paper the Feds use.”

“You do know a lot about this,” Betty said in awe.

“Like I said, Prison 101.”

“So you’re saying that if a clerk touches one of their counterfeit bills, it feels right.”

Tillie nodded. “And looks okay. That’s where Rose comes in. The chemicals she uses makes the bills feel and look old. But that’s not all that’s going on.” Tillie picked up one of the thin black cards. “Can you guess what they’re doing with this?”

“They’re counterfeiting credit cards?” Betty asked, looking around for a machine of some sort that would emboss the cards.

“Not credit cards. The plastic is too thin for that, but not thin enough for a microchip. Inside one of these suckers is a chip strong enough to override a slot machine’s computer once its slipped inside the ticket-in, ticket-out slot.”

“Hannah claimed there were too many jackpots being won,” Betty recalled.

Tillie added, “Including one for thirteen million dollars.”

Betty scanned the room once more. “There’s enough evidence here to put Boris away for eternity. We’ve got to find the sheriff.”

“I agree. You head out the front and I’ll leave the same way I came in, through the luggage compartment.”

“But, it’ll be quicker to use the front door.”

“I want everything to look normal, in case Boris gets back here before we do,” Tillie insisted.

Betty stepped out of the room and watched as Tillie pressed a switch. The wall slid shut and Tillie disappeared from sight.

As Betty turned to leave she heard a small whirring sound and looked up. The web cam that she and Tillie thought was for bedroom games was following her every step. Betty raced outside and down the slippery steps. According to her wristwatch, the matinee was over in a matter of minutes.

“Hurry up!” Betty cried, waiting for Tillie to emerge from the compartment underneath the bus.

She waited only a few seconds more before she went blank.

“Aunt Betty! Wake up!”

Someone was shaking Betty’s shoulders like they were a sack of Idahos. For the briefest of moments she hoped it was only a bad dream, one that included a hand grenade detonating inside her head. A shock of icy cold startled Betty awake. Kneeling above her was Lori, who was holding a second handful of snow that waited to be tossed into Betty’s face.

Betty asked, “Did I fall again?”

“Not unless you tripped on a stuffed sock,” Lori said, holding up a bulging athletic sock tied tightly at the top with a pink ribbon.

Betty pulled herself into an upright position and looked around, still confused. She mumbled, “Tillie?”

Lori misunderstood what her aunt was asking. “It wasn’t Tillie who did this. I was halfway across the parking lot when I saw that Irish woman and Ogawa running towards you. You know, the one who was on stage when Slevitch was killed?”

“She’s Serbian, not Irish. And her name isn’t Kelly, it’s Rose,” Betty informed her, as she stood upright.

Lori said, “Well, whoever she is, she struck you across the back of your head with this sock filled with pennies. You went down immediately.”

“You said Ogawa was running?” Betty rubbed her forehead. If she was going to continue being an amateur detective, she’d better start carrying aspirin.

“Like a fifty-year old athlete,” Lori answered.

Ogawa probably took lessons from Kevin Spacey’s performance in
The Usual Suspects
—or the other way around. In a flash Betty realized Boris’ tour bus was no longer there. It was missing. And so was Tillie.

“Did you see Tillie get
off
the bus?” Betty asked.

Lori answered, “No. All I saw was Rose and Ogawa jumping on. They drove that way.” Lori pointed her finger northward.

Betty could see the purple and white vehicle as it sped past cars and maneuvered around snow blowers. She pointed at the speeding motor coach. “Tillie’s inside the secret room. We’ve got to stop it.”

Lori’s gaze took on a look of concern. “Secret room? Aunt Betty, are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” Betty answered, although the inside of her head whirled like a Maytag on rinse. “Trust me, there’s a secret room in that bus and Tillie is inside it.”

“I’ll call Severson,” Lori responded as she opened her purse to find her cell.

“Call him from there, ” Betty pointed toward the roped-off Take A Chance bus. “We don’t have a second to lose.”

“But, ...”

“We have to follow Ogawa now!” Betty said, already sprinting toward the bus.

For the first time in her life Betty’s extra weight acted like propulsion forcing her body forward at break-neck speed. She could tell her niece was struggling to keep up. Within a minute, Betty was at the side of the Take A Chance bus and yanking yellow crime scene tape off its door.

Betty lowered herself onto the frigid asphalt and reached underneath the frame. She felt around for a few seconds and announced, “I know Tillie keeps a spare key somewhere down here.” She pulled out a small black metal box. “Here it is!”

Sounding surprised, Lori said, “I have a magnetic box like that for my car. She has one for a friggin’ bus?”

“It’s a Chicago thing,” Betty acknowledged as she slid open the top of the little container. She removed a key and opened the door. “Moms make their daughters hide a key in case their boyfriend wants more than a kiss. And Tillie will always be, no matter how tough she thinks she is, a South Side Girly-Girl.”

Betty didn’t bother to pull down the steps, but instead hoisted herself up and onto the landing.

Lori followed her, while managing to look inside her purse. As she began to rummage through her pockets, she groaned, “I don’t have my phone!”

“We’ll use the phone on the bus to call the dispatcher.” Betty held the ignition key out to Lori. “You take the wheel.”

Lori stared at the maze of pedals in front of her. “I can’t. I’ve never driven a manual transmission.”

Betty said, “Okay, I’ll drive.”

“You’ve driven a stick?” Lori asked.

“Once,” Betty answered, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Once?”

“When I was sixteen,” Betty said, slipping the key into the ignition.

Lori stood next to her. She grabbed the vertical bar.

Betty started the engine, pushed the clutch pedal down, shifted into first and stepped on the gas. The bus took off with a jolt that tossed Lori back onto the front seat.

The windshield was dirty causing Betty to squint to see through it. She fiddled with buttons and levers and managed to turn the windshield wipers on. Another switch splashed washer fluid over the entire window. But, the frigid weather outside made the wiper fluid freeze almost instantly. Blowing snow played havoc with her limited vision. If the wind gusts picked up speed, she’d soon be dealing with driving in a blizzard.

Lori pointed toward the stoplight a quarter mile away. “Ogawa’s bus is stopped behind an RV at the casino entrance.”

Betty could see half a dozen news reporters and their trucks stationed along the shoulders of the road up ahead. She knew there was no way Ogawa could get around them safely. She might be able to catch up with him after all.

Betty shifted into a higher gear, and pressed her foot hard against the gas pedal. The Take A Chance bus leapt over a concrete curb. She deftly guided the vehicle back onto the road.

“Sorry,” she said.

Lori shouted, “The light’s turned green. Ogawa’s turning left.”

“They’re heading to the freeway,” Betty said, worried. The expressway was only five miles away.

“I bet they’ll try to make it to Canada,” Lori added, right before her aunt scraped the sides of both a parked Volvo and a rusted pick-up.

“Crap,” Betty mumbled, gripping the steering wheel even tighter. She shifted gears. The sound of clunks and squeals rattled the air. The engine revved like a motorcycle driven by a teenager on his first ride.

“I hate stick shifts,” she muttered.

“Canada’s what? A few hours from here?” Lori asked, standing up. She used one hand to hold onto the vertical bar again, and her other to pick up the phone receiver from the instrument board.

“Yeah, but the wildness area starts way before the border. That means they’ll be able to drive on dirt roads that weave through the woods. They’ll be able to sneak across the border before anyone can find them.”

Lori kept pushing buttons. “How does this stupid thing ...?” She stopped asking her question and blurted, “Watch out!”

Betty didn’t listen. She drove straight through the red stoplight. Somehow, she managed to turn left in the process without tipping the bus over. But, she did knockdown a road sign or two.

Betty exhaled a “whew” and mumbled another, “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Lori stated, sitting down in the front seat and snapping a seat belt around her. “Because I have a feeling you’ll be doing it every other minute.”

Betty felt the tires skid on a patch of black ice and the bus skid toward the snow banks along the side of the road. She was able to steer the vehicle back onto the road before a collision with a passing car. But the swerving motion must have frightened the other driver. He lost control of his dark green Chevy Blazer and careened into a powdery ditch.

In her rearview mirror Betty caught a glimpse of the upset driver giving her a one-finger salute through his rolled-down window.

Lori said, “Should I try to figure out how to contact the dispatcher again?’’

“Forget about it,” Betty told her.

“But, we’ve got to let the police …”

“Trust me, we just sideswiped two parked cars in a casino parking lot, ran an SUV off the road and took out a few road signs, and we did it all in front of a news crew. The police have already been called.”

“Are you sure?”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a silver Porsche appeared on her left. As it sped by, Betty read the license plate,
Baffler 2
.

Boris was at the wheel.

She glanced at the speedometer. The speed limit on the narrow and curvy country road was thirty-five mph. Boris had to be driving sixty. She was already going fifty-five. And Boris’ bus was going faster than she was.

As if reading her mind Lori asked, “How fast can this thing go?”

“Let’s find out,” Betty answered, and pushed the pedal into the floor.

Betty saw that Lori was hanging onto her seat belt for dear life, yet she was more concerned for Tillie. There was no telling what was happening to her friend. If she were still trapped inside the luggage compartment, she was undoubtedly being tossed around like a guppy in a hurricane. But, if Rose and Ogawa had already discovered Tillie inside the bus, there was no telling what could be happening to her.

Betty watched as Boris’ Porsche flew over a hill while driving in the wrong lane. She waited to hear the sound of an impact. Three seconds later, a Dodge Caravan came over the same hill in the same lane that Boris had used. Amazingly, he avoided killing the horrified family in the passing mini-van.

Betty stared straight ahead, wondering what would happen next. She announced, “If there are police cars in the area, Severson will ask them to set up a roadblock, probably at the freeway entrance, or further down the road.

Lori turned to look behind her and said, “I think Tom told me the town only has two units.”

“Then Severson will call in the State troopers,” Betty assured her.

“What happens if they set up a road block and …”

Betty finished her sentence for her, “And Ogawa decides
not
to stop?”

Lori asked, “Do you think he would do that? That would put all of their lives at risk, including his.”

Betty answered, “To be honest, I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”

She realized Ogawa would be facing two counts of murder as well as charges of counterfeiting and casino tampering. He’d truly be old and stooped before he was eligible for parole.

Lori pointed to the bus in front of them and asked,” What’s that?”

Betty stared straight ahead as the wind tossed the snowflakes around the prairie landscape like confetti at a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “What’s what?” Betty asked, not noticing what Lori was referencing.

“There! That thing hanging out of the side window of Boris’ bus? Is it a flag or something? Do you think they want to surrender?” Lori asked.

Suddenly, the
thing
flew away from whoever or whatever was holding it. The wind propelled it straight back and toward the Take A Chance bus. At the speed it was going, if it were made of something harder than fabric, it would have crashed through the window killing them both. But, it was only fabric. Still, it terrified the two of them.

“My god,” Betty gasped, barely able to keep the bus under control as she stared at the large piece of cloth that still covered part of the windshield. Dark red liquid oozed from the fabric and smeared across the glass as the wiper struggled to fling it off.

It took a moment before Betty could admit what she saw in front of her.

“That’s Tillie’s shirt.”