ppp cove 06 - criminals on vacation
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Authors: molly dox
Criminals on Vacation
Molly Dox
Copyright 2015, Molly Dox
Klondike Mike and Jimmy “Bag of Bagels” weren’t the smartest of criminals, but they were the guys that were willing to do small heists that nobody else wanted. In an attempt to rebuild their ruined reputation, they picked up a quick job…or so they thought.
Poppy Pepper gets pulled into the mess when her friend Carmella goes through some “odd” circumstances. And after Carmella’s divorce, she didn’t have many friends left, having chased them all off with her constant whining. Poppy feels obligated to help Carmella figure out what’s going on. Can the women solve the mystery that a couple of foolish criminals just barely pull off?
Book cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design
Contents
Chapter 1
Carmella paced as she talked. She was thrilled with the divorce settlement, but less than thrilled that her lying, cheating ex-husband moved in with his twenty-three year old lover. And in the same town no less! He’d chosen a place to rent only a few streets over that she’d have to pass every time she left her development. He was set to marry the young floosy. It was a slap in the face, no doubt.
Poppy cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear, while sorting through a stack of papers she’d let go too long. She really needed to go paperless and update their system. She’d started the process a few times and then let it slide. “It’s not worth getting upset over. If it bothers you that much, why not sell the house and make a fresh start?”
“I’ve put so much money into this place, making it exactly as I wanted. Besides Anastasia loves it here,” she whined. Anastasia was her prize winning Shih-Tzu that she coddled over. The little white dog was her entire world.
“I’m sure Anastasia would be able to adapt to a new environment. She’s a bright dog,” Poppy said, trying to soothe her friend, but knowing Carmella based most of her decisions around her pet.
“I suppose,” Carmella answered dramatically. As she passed the window, the one that looked out to the front yard and mailbox, she noticed something. Her beautiful flowers were mashed. Somebody had trampled her flowers around the mailbox. She clenched her teeth and cussed her husband’s name under her breath. She was sure it was him. “Oh, the nerve; how childish. He destroyed my flowers at the end of the drive.”
Poppy knew her old friend was going through a ruckus, but sometimes the whining got a bit overdone. “Who destroyed your flowers?”
“Oh, it’s so obvious, Peter, that stupid, conniving ex-husband of mine.” She opened the door to get a better look. As she stepped out onto the walkway, Carmella gasped. She’d turned toward her driveway, but something was wrong.
“What is it?” Poppy asked.
“My car is gone! Someone stole my car. I’ve got to go. I have to call the police.” She hung up the phone in a tizzy.
Poppy looked at her phone as the dial tone kicked in. Maybe she should go over. She’d need somebody to help calm her down, and Carmella had chased away most of her friends during the worst of the divorce proceedings. Poppy knew she didn’t have many people left to support her. Of course, her dramatic actions and words could prove tiring at times. It was always a theatric experience around the woman.
Poppy glanced over her shoulder toward her father. “Dad, can you cover the desk for a bit?”
“Sure thing,” he said, flipping through the channels on the television faster than he had time to register what was playing on each station.
Chapter 2
Klondike Mike turned to his partner, Jimmy “Bag-of-Bagels”. The two had been partners in crime for as long as they could remember. Usually petty stuff, but each gig they pulled off gave them a bigger reputation where it mattered in their world. They’d just wrapped another job, or so they thought.
“Easy enough,” Mike said with a grin. He had gotten the white Mitsubishi out of the driveway without a hitch. The homeowner never saw them. Driving out of the development, he pulled over just a mile or two away. They needed to let their boss know the job was complete.
Jimmy looked over at Klondike Mike. His good eye was on the other side. Jimmy still hadn’t gotten used to Mike’s scar. Mike used to be Mike Dasher, for being quick on the run, but after his accident with the pick ax everybody started calling him Klondike Mike and it stuck. When it first happened, he wore gauze and a bandage, so you couldn’t see the mess, but now that he’d since healed, it was hard not to stare.
“Are you looking at me again?” Mike felt the stare of his partner. He growled and turned to face him. “Just take a good, long look at me and get it over with.”
“Mike, we’re buddies. We go back, it’s not like that. It’s just still new.” His fast, squirrel like voice made him sound like a weasel. “Anyway, I’ve got to call the boss. I’ll handle it.”
Mike nodded. He always liked it better when Jimmy did the talking. That guy could talk a tornado around somebody, and they’d never know what hit them.
Jimmy dialed and waited for their boss to answer. “Hey boss, the job is done. We got the white Mitsubishi. Where do you want it delivered?” They’d only gotten a few details with a number to call to get paid.
“You idiots, not a Mitsubishi,” he screamed. Mike could hear it and he wasn’t even using the phone. If the guy could have climbed through the phone he would have. He groaned and then explained. “It’s a dog, you fools; get the dog. I said Shih-Tzu, not Mitsubishi!”
Jimmy looked at Mike, shrugged, and then finished his conversation. There wasn’t much left to say. They’d stolen the wrong thing. Easy misunderstanding or so Jimmy thought. “Right, we’re on it.”
Chapter 3
Carmella was flustered. As soon as she hung up from Poppy, she’d dialed 9-1-1. “I want to report a crime. My car was stolen!”
The woman that answered the phone at the dispatch center took her information and promised to send a patrol car over to her house. She’d put a message out over police radio to the officers on the street to be on the look-out for the stolen vehicle, she told her, as soon as they finished their conversation.
Carmella paced and then went back outside to look at her driveway as she spoke to the police dispatcher. Perplexed, she stood staring at her white car. She was stunned. “Umm, hold off on sending that police officer. It’s back, my car is back.”
“What? Your car is in your driveway? You’re telling me it was gone, but now it’s there?” The police dispatcher wasn’t sure what was going on, but didn’t have time for shenanigans.
She stared at the white Mitsubishi. She spoke meekly. “Yes, it’s back.” Was she going crazy? It wasn’t there just a bit ago, but there she stood, looking at her car, the one that was parked right where she’d left it.
The dispatcher sighed. This was getting confusing. “So, basically, there is no crime. You have your car.”
Carmella shook her head, realizing she must have sounded odd. “No, it was stolen. It wasn’t here. My driveway was empty. It was gone. Only, now it’s back. Somebody took my car and then returned it.”
The dispatcher checked with her one more time. “So your car is there, and you don’t need the police.”
“But it was gone. Somebody had to steal it.” She was growing frustrated.
“But it’s not gone now. It’s been returned.” This was the weirdest call the 9-1-1 dispatcher had gotten all day.
“Yes. Umm, never mind,” she said and hung up the phone. Was she losing her marbles? Should she have the police come out anyway? Or was it there all along? No, it wasn’t. She saw! She saw it with her own eyes. Her car was missing. And as fast as it went missing, it was back. She had no idea what to make of it all.
Carmella stood next to her car. Nothing seemed amiss, broken, or different. She dialed her friend’s number again. Uncertainty laced her voice. “Poppy, you’re never going to believe this.”
Weirder things had happened, but Poppy found it odd that the car was gone one moment and then back the next. Did the thief grab the wrong car? Were they supposed to pick off a neighbor’s car? Did they not like how it drove? Or was the car never actually gone? Was Carmella slowly losing it? She did have a way of blowing up tiny things into monstrosities. Maybe the car had never left the driveway in the first place. Poppy winced. She didn’t mean to question her friend’s credibility, but she was known to have quite the dramatic flair. She cautiously answered her, “Interesting.”
“You do believe me, right? You don’t think I’m crazy?” Carmella moaned, frustrated. “Poppy, it was gone. I’m telling you, my driveway was empty.”
“Yeah, of course,” Poppy said, pacifying her friend. “How about I come over for a while, and we’ll see what we can find. Maybe they left fingerprints behind.”
“Of course…why didn’t I think of that?” She sounded relieved that Poppy believed her. At that moment, Carmella was questioning her sanity.
“Don’t touch anything until I get there and we’ll go over it together. I’m on my way.” Poppy headed out to her truck and climbed in. When it had trouble starting, she drew a deep breath, as if magically that would make the difference. She tried again, and then finally her old TrailBlazer shook to life. It had been running well for the longest time, but lately it was struggling. She’d need to drop it at the shop and have it looked at, or see if her father could figure it out. She hated the idea of having to put out more money for a new car if this one still had life in it.
The drive over to Carmella’s house wasn’t too bad. For Poppy, it was no more than twenty minutes with traffic, fifteen without. They’d first met years ago through a mutual friend. The other friend had moved on with her husband to another state, but Poppy and Carmella remained close. As she pulled into the Carriage House Gates community, she wondered which house Carmella’s husband had ended up renting. She said it was near the front of the development, so that she’d have to pass it every time she went anywhere. She had no idea what her husband was driving anymore, so looking for his car would have been pointless.
Poppy turned onto Carmella’s street and parked by the curb. Getting out, she looked at the crushed flowers by the mailbox. That wasn’t the mailman accidently stepping on them. Besides, the mailmen around here drove trucks. It was obvious it was vandalism. In fact, to make a point, somebody had taken one of the flowers, pulled it out, and put it back in the flowerbed upside down so that the roots stuck up.
She made her way up the driveway and down the paver stone path to the door. After she rang the doorbell, Poppy waited…and waited. Nothing. Poppy called out to her friend, knocking at the door and ringing a bell a second time. “Carmella?”
Her friend, all perfectly coifed and bobbed, finally made it to the door. Her voice raised an octave as she talked to the dog. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was around back with Anastasia, so she could do her little doggy business. Wasn’t I, baby?”
“Right,” Poppy said as she walked into the grand foyer. She noticed the lack of pictures on the wall and on the mahogany table beside the door. There used to be pictures of the happy family. Now all that was left were the dog pictures and empty spaces.
“Come in, come in,” she said. “It was the weirdest thing. My car, it was gone! I’m not making this up. There was nothing in my driveway. So, as soon as I hung up the phone, I dialed the police. Only, when I go to look again, it was back. I’m not losing it. Am I? I mean, I’m positive it was gone. Who takes a car and then brings it back?” She started chattering faster and faster, trying to make sense of things.
“It is an odd thing. Did somebody attempt to steal the wrong car? Or does your ex still have a key? What about your son, does he have a key?” She was trying to deduce who else would have access quickly.
“I don’t they either of them does.” She shook her head. “You were right earlier, we should check for fingerprints. Or do you think the police should do it?”
“Well, there’s no crime if your car is parked in your driveway, and still undamaged. I’m not sure that they’ll set up an investigation for a car that went missing for only a few minutes.”
Carmella sighed. “I know I sound crazy. Please, I hope you believe me. Something happened. Somebody has an agenda. Or maybe Peter’s messing with me, living so close. He always liked to play head games. Did you see my flowerbed? He’ll stop at nothing to make my life miserable. And what have I ever done to him, but kept a nice home, fed him, pandered to his needs, but in return, I get the short end of the stick. At least I still have my baby. There was no way I’d let him get his grubby, cheating hands on my Anastasia. She’s so precious to me, and he didn’t care about her. All he did was complain about her. Never mind, that those dog show awards make future puppies more valuable in price, and her more valuable in the show ring. She’s a champion, a top contender. He just never understood the dog show world. He thought it was frivolous. Frivolous? Crazy man, this was not some hobby like knitting, it’s about building a future litter of winners. Of course, she is getting a little older these days. I’ll need to wait for the right stud for her next litter. I can’t just breed her with any dog.” It was like someone had lit a fire under her. She went on and on about the dog and her ex, and almost forgot that her car had been ‘temporarily removed’ or stolen.