“Ma’am? What’s your location?” he asked once more, obviously attempting to keep me calm, which was only making me feel like my urgency was going unheard.
Now, here’s the thing: I was a 9-1-1 operator before I was excommunicated, and while I dealt with more unusual issues, like wands exploding and cauldrons blowing frog guts all over the place, I knew I should be calm and give all pertinent information with succinct description.
But Belfry had never been at stake before, so I sort of lost my nuts.
“Ma’am!
Your location!
”
All my training went out the window and I turned into a screaming shrew. “This isn’t real estate! I’m on an effin’ boat at the docks! You know, like, ‘Rock The Boat’,
The Love Boat
, floaty, in the water, life vests,
Titanic
boooat
!” I screamed into the phone, unable to think any more clearly than that as Belfry continued to assault Jacob, tweaking his flesh at every available opportunity.
One swat of Jacob’s meaty hand and Belfry was toast. “Belfry! Stop!”
“Ma’am, who’s Belfry? Is he there with you? Is he in danger, too? Or is he the perpetrator?”
I tried again to push my way back up the wall, but I’m telling you, I think I broke my butt.
“Ma’am?
Who. Is. Belfry
?” The operator had grown more insistent now, his tone urgent as he enunciated words.
Sweet Pete in a pasture, but I couldn’t get my head together. “No! Yes! Wait—no! I don’t know who he is! Please just send someone now!”
Finally I managed to inch my way up the wall, the shooting pain running the length of my thigh making me want to scream and gnash my teeth. But I was up, and as I pitched forward, Belfry took a final stab at Jacob right between his bulging, bloodshot eyes.
“Belfry! Stop this instant!” Win hollered with an anxious tone I rarely heard from him. If Spy guy was concerned for Bel, there was imminent danger.
I fell into the hard wall of Jacob’s chest just as he reached up and took one last swipe at Belfry, only this time, my little warrior wasn’t quick enough and Jacob caught him in the palm of his hand.
“What the hell is this thing?” he roared in anger, launching Bel across the cabin, where he hit the wall with a tiny whimpered squeak.
As I watched my little friend hit that wall with the force of a softball, I think my head spun around in a circle a la Linda Blair in
The Exorcist
. So I admit, I flipped out…saw all the colors of the rainbow…would have spewed pea soup if I had anything but coffee and an apple/blueberry muffin in my stomach.
As the 9-1-1 operator called to me again, I dropped the phone.
“I will kill you!” I raged, charging at Jacob like I was a bull in Pamplona, driving my head into him and successfully knocking him to the ground, where I jumped on him and clocked him right in the eye. Then I grabbed one of the ceramic bowls from the floor and cracked it over his head.
Of course, my victory was fleeting, and it was only seconds before he rolled me and pinned me to the ground, his enormous fist balled and ready to knock my fool head off.
I closed my eyes to prepare even as I reared upward, attempting to knock him off me.
Then two things happened at once. Win was in my ear, shouting more directions, and Jacob was suddenly shaking like he’d been hit with two thousand volts of electricity.
He fell from me in a quaking puddle of limbs, his face frozen in rage, his fingers turning into claws before he slumped and went limp.
Holy cow. Someone had tasered him. I’d cheer, but it hurt too much to expend the effort.
“Belfry!” I whimpered.
“He’s all right, Dove. Climbing back into your purse to hide as we speak,” Win reassured me.
I breathed a sigh of relief then winced in pain when I tried to swallow.
“Stevie!” someone yelled before a shadow cast over me. When I opened my eyes, I saw Sandwich kneeling next to me, his face riddled with concern. “What the heck happened and why are you on Dietrich’s boat?”
I moaned, my butt on absolute fire. “Is that his last name?” It’s always nice to know the full name of the man who almost knocked you into kingdom come.
Sandwich nodded, and I was sure a scolding was at the ready on the tip of his tongue. “Yes, Stevie. That’s his last name. Now what are you doing on his boat?”
I tried to sit up, but I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to use my back end again. Sandwich offered me a hand, pulling me up to my feet. I had to clench my teeth together to keep from screeching, the pain was so intense, but I hobbled upright, gripping his arm when he led me to the corner, where a built-in bench sat behind a table.
It was covered in whiskey bottles, wrappers from those pink, sugary snowballs (gak! Have some respect for your body and eat the classy empty-calorie treats, Jacob!), and a grease-stained cookbook.
“Sit down and tell me what happened here.”
I held up a hand. No way could I put my throbbing keister on the hard wood of the bench. “I think I broke my butt. I can stand, thanks. And well, I was sort of—”
“Snooping around,” Win finished in my ear.
“Snooping around,” Sandwich prompted almost directly after, a look of admonishment on his face.
“Okay, fine,” I said on a roll of my eyes. “I was snooping. I watched them tow away Tito’s truck today and it made me crazy, thinking the Bustamante boys are going to suffer, and Maggie’s going to suffer, if they don’t have a way to earn a living. And you know how long things are tied up in red tape in evidence, Sandwich. So I just thought I’d—”
“Try to move things along at the speed you think things should be moving along?” Sandwich supplied with a purse of his lips and a frown.
Wrinkling my nose, I had to admit that was a fair assessment. “Okay, that too. Yes, I wanted to move things along, for lack of a better phrase. But out of nowhere, he grabbed me, dragged me down the steps and held me up against the wall, demanding to know what I wanted. I couldn’t have told him even if I wanted to because I couldn’t breathe. And then things got hinky. Something, I don’t know what, attacked him and he went ballistic. Swearing, yelling. You know, typical roid-rage stuff. I think he was seeing things because I didn’t see anything.”
Phew. I was a crappy liar. I had to let my head hang low and pretend I was rubbing my aching temples.
Sandwich nodded like he’d known all along what I was up to. “And who’s Belfry?”
I made my eyes round and Thumper-ish. “Who?”
Sandwich’s face said he didn’t believe a word I was saying. “The 9-1-1 operator said you mentioned a Belfry. Was it someone helping Jacob? Or was he or she with you?”
“Oh, he must’ve misunderstood me. I don’t know any Belfry. There was no one but me and that lunatic here.”
Sandwich pulled out his phone with a log of the call. Damn you, technology.
He tapped the phone. “Says it right here, Stevie. ‘Belfry stop’.”
“Should’ve followed up with a twirl of your hair, Stevie,” Win taunted in my ear.
I licked my lips and attempted to keep my face placid. “Oh! I know, that must have been when I was yelling ‘help me’ and ‘stop’. That was when he was charging me like I had the football.”
“I see,” he said noncommittally.
I could tell he wasn’t sure whether he believed me or not, but I really had to get home and take some aspirin or get Enzo to tranquilize me.
“So is that all? Am I going to be arrested for interfering with an ongoing investigation or something?”
“Nothing would please me more,” Officer Nelson said from behind Sandwich.
Yippee. My favorite stick in the mud was in the house.
“Hey, Officer Sunshine. What up?” I asked as cheerfully as possible.
Officer Nelson strolled toward me, the boat rocking yet his strong legs never once losing their balance as he peered down at me. If sarcasm were an expression, he was wearing it.
“How strange that we should find you here on the docks with Jacob Dietrich, Miss Cartwright. Could it be that you’re sticking your civilian nose in where it doesn’t belong?”
I pretended I was contemplating as I gazed at his chiseled face with as much innocence as I could muster. “Could be,” I offered grudgingly.
His eyebrow rose and his face remained a block of ice. “How unlike you. Looks like you have some pretty bad bruises on your neck there.”
My hand flew to my neck as my cheeks went hot. “That’s what happens when a drunken psychopath uses you as his punching bag.”
“You should have that checked out, and we’ll need pictures for evidence. So please wait here.” Officer Nelson then sauntered off and up the creaky steps to the upper deck, where much commotion was going on.
I’d dig through my purse for my compact to see the damage, but everything was scattered all over the floor.
“He’s right, Stevie,” Sandwich said as he lifted my chin, wincing as he looked at the column of my throat. “Those look pretty rough. But at least let us get some pictures so he can be charged with assault and battery. No matter what you did, he shouldn’t be knockin’ a woman around.”
“She was trespassing, was what the hell she was doin’!”
Ah, Jacob had recovered from the taser and was up and at ’em again. He’d been restrained and I was finally able to get a good look at him. Man, he was big. Redwood big, with greasy hair he’d tied into a dirty brown ponytail and eyes like maniacal, wobbly blue marbles in his head.
I became indignant. “I was not!” Well, not yet, anyway. Not fully. Okay, I admit, I was on the deck, but he caught me before I had the chance to find a door to knock on. Still, the truth was, I hadn’t even begun to trespass. “I’d just stepped foot on this leaky canoe when you grabbed me. I was looking for a door to knock on, you monster!”
“Stevie. Stop poking the beast,” Win warned, warming my heart, reminding me he was back and everything was right again.
“Stevie. Please don’t antagonize,” Sandwich said, mirroring Win’s words. “Now, let’s get you to the doc so he can check you and we can take pictures, okay?”
“You can take as many pictures as you’d like, but I don’t need to go to the doctor. I’m fine. Honest.” I began an attempt to push past Sandwich, only to find walking was quite painful. I winced and tried to bite off the hiss of searing agony shooting up my thigh.
“You don’t look fine. Listen, don’t be a hero. Just go see the doc in case there’s real damage. You wouldn’t want to hinder your sleuthing if it’s something serious, would you?”
“Stop taunting me, Officer Paddington. I was only trying to help people I like. I’ll go to the doctor, but I’m telling you, I’m really okay.” Except for my butt. My derriere was broken.
“Can I offer you a lift? I’ll bring you back to your car when you’re done.”
“Sure. Thanks, Sandwich.” I let him help me toward the steps to the upper deck, biting off cries of pain as I went.
Just as we passed the group of officers who’d come to save me from that madman, I heard one mutter, “Nah, he alibied out. He was with Marvin Wexler all morning, filling out permit papers the day Bustamante was whacked. Sure would make me feel better if it was Dietrich so we could take that boozer off the streets for good before he really hurts someone. He’s a dang nasty drunk.”
Whelp, we could scratch that suspect off our list.
Shoot.
Might have been useful information to have
before
I broke my butt.
I
’ll be dipped. I sort of really
had
broken my butt. My coccyx, to be precise, and it wasn’t really broken, just badly bruised. An ailment neither Belfry nor Winterbottom were apparently ever going to let me live down.
When Jacob dropped me to the ground so suddenly, I hadn’t braced myself for the fall, thus bruising my butt. Now, back at home, on some lovely muscle relaxers, I almost didn’t mind that Win and Bel couldn’t stop torturing me about it. Because we were all together and that’s what was most important.
Bel nudged my ear with his fuzzy head before tucking against my neck and hiding just under my hair. “Hey. Is the ice helping your butt?”
“Who’s got a Winterbottom now?” Win asked, and then both he and Bel fell into another fit of laughter.
“Jolly good one, mate!” Bel giggled out the words.
“Oh, you’re both a laugh riot,” I said as I tried to stand up, but it took some doing. Even with the muscle relaxers, which had begun to wear off.
“Oh no, kiddo. You sit your undernourished tuchus back in that seat and rest. I’m heating you up some pasta fagioli and making you a fontina and gouda grilled cheese,” Carmella said in her husband Enzo’s matching New York accent as she came around the corner of the parlor, wiping her hands on her salmon-pink apron with the ruffles.
I loved Carmella. She was soft and chubby, round and perfect, her thick black hair with a shock of white rolled into a messy bun at the back of her head. She always smelled like vanilla, sage, and pasta sauce, and she wore sensible, black lace-up shoes with matching sensible boxy dresses tied around her thick waist.
She cooked, she soothed…in general, she made me feel like I mattered, and I loved it. Ate it up with a spoon, no matter how much I protested her attentions and awesome leftovers she sent for me with Enzo. Above all, she was a nurturer, something my mother definitely was not, nor had ever been.
Carmella had heard about my incident with Jacob and had rushed over to cook for me so I could rest and recover. She’d even gone so far as to personally cancel my late-afternoon appointment with Bootsie Davis.
Planting her hands on her abundant hips, she gave me one of those admonishing looks all Italian mothers have down to a science. “And who are you talking to in here? Rest means rest, little lady.”
I pointed to the Bluetooth in my ear. “Just a friend who’s sorely mistaken if he thinks comedy is in his wheelhouse.”
“Well, you just sit right there and be still so you can heal. All those meds you have in you means you shouldn’t be wanderin’ around anyway. I’m back in the kitchen for a little bit. Don’t make me bring out the rolling pin,” she teased, her deep brown eyes twinkling with the threat.
“Thank you, Carmella. You’ve made a horrible day so much nicer. I appreciate you and Enzo.”