Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder (12 page)

“S
o why does Detective Roberts have it out for JT?” I asked. “What did she ever do to him?”

“Oh God. That was such a mess.” Heidi sighed.

This wasn’t going to be good.

“It all started when we were at the academy. Roberts was bull-headed right from the get-go. He was an opinionated misogynist who felt—probably still feels—that anyone without a dick has no place in law enforcement. All of the women in our class butted heads with him. He’s just lucky no one decided to use him for a target during firearms drills.”

Coop asked, “So did he have the same animosity toward all of the recruits that he has toward JT?”

“As I said, he didn’t like any of the women, but JT in particular tripped something in his itty-bitty brain. JT scored at the top of the class, neck and neck with the bas—with Roberts—every step of the way. He couldn’t fathom a mere girl challenging him at anything. When someone came along who was actually better than he was at more than one thing and who didn’t have a penis, well, he popped his cork.

“The instructors yanked him out of class more than once over his behavior. I hoped—we all hoped—he’d get booted, but somehow he managed to hang in there, no matter what crap he laid on the rest of us.” With eyes squinted almost shut in memory, Heidi continued. “Rumors were always flying among us as to why Roberts didn’t get the heave-ho. They ran the gamut. From him being related to one of the brass, or that maybe he managed to bribe his way in—man, he could find out secrets and make life a living hell for whoever he targeted.”

Heidi paused, measuring her words. “In fact, his behavior was exactly that of a schoolyard bully. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s still a cop. I was sure that by now he would’ve done something to someone that would have gotten him fired, or worse.”

No doubt about it, the man was straight-up bad news.

“Back to JT,” I said gently, trying to pull Heidi out of her memories. “That was awhile back. Wouldn’t he have let things go by now? Well, obviously he hasn’t. But why?”

“As class went on, animosity between JT and Roberts grew every day. When we graduated, she’d aced him out of the top spot. It was a come-from-behind thing. Believe me, he wasn’t happy playing second fiddle to anyone. You know, come to think of it, I believe he began to truly hate JT after she wiped the course with his ass when we were in St. Cloud learning how to PIT, which was right toward the end of the academy.”

“Pit?” I’d heard JT talk about a lot of police stuff, but I didn’t recall hearing about any pit. It sounded like what was left after eating certain fruits and veggies.

Coop shocked the hell out of me by explaining. “Pursuit Intervention Technique, I think. P-I-T.”

I glanced at him, impressed and more than a little puzzled as to why he’d know that. He caught my look and tapped his noggin with a knuckle. “I have more useless trivia up here than you’d ever expect.”

Heidi gave him a nod. “I guess you do. It’s a technique that, under the right conditions, we can use to stop a fleeing vehicle. JT, as usual, mastered the how-to in no time flat. She somehow managed to find herself partnered up with Roberts for the hands-on driving portion on the second day. Let me tell you, it wasn’t by choice. She avoided that man like a plague of killer wasps. By the end of day two, their relationship shifted from barely tolerant to outright hatred. I don’t know what was said in that car while they ran the course, but something had to have been.

“Afterward, I asked her what happened. Numerous times. But she just shut her trap. After awhile I just quit trying.”

Poor JT. To be stuck in a tiny space with someone she couldn’t stand would’ve seriously sucked.

“So,” I asked, “what happened after you guys graduated?”

“We hit the road with field training officers. Eventually some of the guys moved into other areas within the Minneapolis police department. JT went into sex crimes. I did a stint with mounted patrol then wound up in backgrounds and SWAT hostage negotiations. A few of the guys left for other agencies. Roberts wanted a promotion, but no one was willing to give him one in the MPD. Probably because he was riddled with use-of-force complaints. He bailed to the burbs, and from what I heard, cleaned up his act enough to get promoted to detective.”

I said, “So then at least he was out of JT’s hair.”

“He was until the blowout with Russ Krasski.” Heidi sighed. “After that, he dogged her again. Talking shit. The cities are big, but this burg is a pretty damn small place when it comes to that kind of thing.”

Coop asked, “Did JT ever talk about that night? About what happened with Krasski?”

Heidi considered that. “After I heard what happened, I called her. We met at a coffee shop in Uptown. That Alice in Wonderland one.”

I bit down a wry grin. “The Rabbit Hole.”

“Yeah. That’s the place. I don’t often get over there, but the coffee’s good.”

That was nice to hear. I considered telling her I owned the joint, but it wasn’t pertinent to this conversation. There was a fair chance I’d worked the day that JT and Heidi met, and I would’ve been completely oblivious. It was an unsettling feeling.

Heidi said, “JT was wrecked. Who wouldn’t have been? She singlehandedly screwed up a case they’d been working on for a really long time. The only saving grace—well, I guess you could call it more than one saving grace—was that all of Krasski’s cronies who were there at the time were taken down. But JT was furious with herself for losing it.”

Coop asked, “Did she tell you what Krasski said to her that set her off?”

Heidi was quiet a long moment. “She would never tell me specifically what he said, only that it was so—what was the word JT used? Reprehensible, that was it—so reprehensible and disgusting that she just snapped.” Heidi pinned her eyes on mine and stared directly into my heart. “JT was a good cop then. She’s a good cop now. Yeah, she might’ve lost her mind, but that monster got what was coming to him. It’s just too bad the beat-down didn’t happen in prison at the hands of some child-molester-hating murderer.”

Poor JT. She bore all of this without ever even giving me a hint that she was carrying around this kind of pain. That just sucked. It hurt more than I expected, actually. But I understood as best I could without actually hearing the details from the woman herself.

Lord knew I had my own share of uncontrolled anger. There were times I had to work really hard to keep myself in check. I intimately knew blinding, red-that-actually-tinted-your-vision rage that could boil up in an instant under the right conditions. But that was me. I absolutely had no idea this kind of thing had ever happened to JT. She worked so very hard to remain cool, calm, and collected, even in the place most people figuratively and literally bared and shared it all—the bedroom. Now for the first time, I guess I really comprehended why. She and I had more in common than I thought, but it was totally disconcerting to have it revealed to me in quite this way.

We thanked Heidi for her time. Once we piled back in the pickup, I started the engine but left the truck idling at the curb. The impact of what we’d just learned about someone I loved, and loved even more intensely the more I heard, rattled me. It wasn’t that I felt JT had failed in any way, but that she’d had to go through this by herself.

Well, she damn well wasn’t alone anymore. She finally had someone on her side, someone who’d been there, who totally understood and got where she was coming from. She and I could only hope we didn’t turn this—I wasn’t even sure what to call it—this rage of conviction, for want of a better phrase, on each other or we’d be toast. The one thing that still got me was that she’d shielded such a huge, painful part of herself from me, and from the rest of the world, simply so she could continue to function.

It all boiled down to secrets. JT obviously had hers, and I suppose I did too. I rarely looked too deeply inside myself, didn’t take much time to consider my own deepest feelings. It was too scary in that place. It was much easier to let the Tenacious Protector take care of the things that I couldn’t deal with.

I imagined it was easier for JT to remain solidly in control, concentrating on whatever needed her attention so she wouldn’t have to consider the demons that had pitched their own tents inside her. If she delved too much, the monsters would be unleashed with a vengeance, and the control she so carefully cultivated would melt like a grape Popsicle on a late-July day.

I leaned back in the seat and pressed my head against the headrest. I didn’t need to get myself all bogged down. JT needed me, and I was going to be there for her. Warmth spread through my chest the way the first sip of something hot on a frigid winter’s evening flowed through your veins after you’d frozen your ass off outside. Maybe this is what love really was all about. But hell, it was confusing.

Coop said quietly, “You okay?”

It was a good thing my friend was a patient man. I had no idea how long I’d sat immobile in the driver’s seat contemplating secrets, tempers, and Minnesota weather metaphors. I didn’t often do a whole lot of self-analysis, and when I did, it tended to freak me out. In this instance, my inner assessment solidified what I was—what
we
were, actually—working toward. It was time to get serious about tracking down a murderer, even if he had offed someone who should’ve been deep-sixed a long time ago, and bring JT’s butt back home where it belonged. That was priority number one.

I shot Coop a steady glance, newfound resolve steeling my words. “It’s time to kick some serious ass.”

eleven

It was just past
eight thirty when we rumbled up the alley and I parked in front of Eddy’s garage behind the Rabbit Hole. Dawg and Bogey were busy chasing each other around the yard. After slobbery hellos I left the two to their game of tag. I thought again how the life of a dog was a hell of a lot easier than the lives of humans these days. Pee. Play. Nap. Eat. Play. Poop. Get some human love. Nap. Pee. Pee again. Eat. Repeat.

I trooped into the kitchen, leaving Coop outside to feed his nicotine addiction and suffer a little more canine slobber.

The kitchen simmered with the mouthwatering fragrance of Eddy’s homemade enchiladas. My stomach reminded me it had been awhile since it had been properly filled and wasn’t particularly happy about it. What an unending, crazy-ass day. I was ready to chow down on just about anything that was edible, and maybe some things that weren’t. The good news was that Eddy’s cooking was always more than edible.

The woman herself, clad in black footie pajamas emblazoned with the rock band Kiss’s logo, stood at the stove stirring something. Without turning around, she said, “About time you showed up. I’ve
got a late supper going. Chicken cheese enchiladas. They’ll be done in fifteen minutes. I’m cooking up parsnips for Coop, and a salad.” She turned away from the softly bubbling root vegetables to face me. “Where is that boy? Kate said he left with you. What kind of shenanigans did you kids get yourselves into while I was stuck with the Knitters? Although,” she said almost as an afterthought, “I made twenty-six bucks on the deal.”

Ah yes, the Mad Knitters doing what they did best.

“As to your first question, Coop’s outside.”

“Puffing on those damn cancer sticks.” She didn’t wait for my affirmation. “We need to light a fire under that boy. Thought he had ’em beat last time. Maybe he should take up cigars.”

Yuck. I had hopes that Coop’s last effort to kick the coffin nail habit would’ve stuck, but at least he had a good attitude about trying again. And again. And again.

I mentally reviewed the day’s events. It made me tired to think about it all. From my morning visit to the Hole, snagging Coop and Rocky from the phone book biz to help with my police station snooping exercise, the near-disastrous water dance with Dimples and Eddy, locating Taffy at the sperm bank and meeting her menagerie, to the heart wrenching trip to see JT and finally tracking down Peaches, or rather, Heidi. It was quite a list to run down when I reviewed it.

I said, “You aren’t going to believe the visit we had to Taffy’s place. Eddy, you should’ve been there.”

“’Course I’m gonna believe. You might not be a child of these old loins, but you’re as close to a daughter to me as anyone could be. I dang well know when you’re laying it on thicker than clumpy molasses.”

That was true. The woman had this freaky sixth sense when it came to me copping a lie or spilling the honest dope. I couldn’t count the times the wooden spoon went
whack!
across my backside when she finally pried the truth from my mouth. It had taken some good
thwacks
, but I learned to either keep my mouth shut or tell the woman the truth. Which, in the long run, was probably a good thing.

Eddy grabbed a fork and stabbed a parsnip. “These are done. You fetch Coop and I’ll get Rocky.”

She drained the parsnips and dumped them in a frying pan with a slab of butter. Then she zoomed off in her footie jammies, the sight of which still cracked me up every time I saw her wearing them. She’d become a
Simmons Family Jewels
fan, and the sleepwear had been a natural hit.

I swung the screen door open. “Coop,” I called into the night. “Eddy cooked. She made you parsnips.” The vegetable was one of his favorites. I thought they were rather unappetizing, myself.

I held the door open as Dawg and Bogey strolled in, snuffled me in greeting, and then wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room. Coop followed them inside and closed the door, sighing appreciatively as he sniffed the air.

I said, “Bet you wish you ate meat right now, don’t you?”

“I can use my schnoz to appreciate that which I’m not going to stuff in my pie hole.” Coop sniffed again. He moved toward the stove. “Sweet. Looks like I’m just in time to keep these beauties from burning.” He grabbed a spatula and started flipping.

“Nick Coop!” Rocky burst into the kitchen, with Eddy trailing along in his wake. “Shay O’Hanlon,” he added when he caught sight of me. “You will never guess what!” He bounced on the balls of his feet.

It was easy to get caught up in Rocky’s enthusiasm. He did a little dance, his entire body getting into the motion. Then he took a big breath and said, “As Shay O’Hanlon likes to say, my flower, my flower, oh boy, oh BOY! My flower is
coming
!”

“What?” Coop turned toward Rocky, spatula frozen in mid-flip. A lone parsnip slid off the utensil and dropped into the sizzling frying pan.

“What?” I echoed, my voice sounding decidedly feeble. Did he really just say Tulip was coming? Holy shit. Rocky and Tulip were both adults as far as the law was concerned, but they were a bit shy of a fully operational deck. Not that either one of them were dumb, not by any stretch. They just lacked a few—okay—more than a few facets of common sense, while they were beyond brilliant in other aspects.

“Oh yes!” Rocky clapped his hands in sheer delight. “Tulip is coming here! To the Twin Cities! To Minneapolis! To the Rabbit Hole! To see me! Oh boy. I am so excited!” He hopped from one neon-orange Converse clad foot to the other. The shoes had been a gift from Eddy, and the sight of him walking around glowing usually made me grin. This time, however, the sight failed to do its job. Panic of a new kind was too firmly imbedded inside me.

Eddy had stopped behind Rocky. Her eyes were round and her mouth gaped in a shocked O.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. “Is she coming alone?” I was afraid to ask and was afraid of the answer. I couldn’t recall ever hearing anything about a caretaker who might give Tulip a hand. I momentarily wondered if they might produce kids as strangely brilliant and as weirdly unique they were. Then I banished that thought. It was a little like thinking about sex and a close relative.

Rocky clapped his hands again, excitement radiating off him in palpable waves. “She is coming with Miss Marple, the wonderful woman who is exactly fifty-seven years, three months, and twenty-two days old. Miss Marple loves Tulip. She likes me too. And this is the very, very, very best part of all.” He gulped in a huge breath,
and then said through a face-splitting grin, “We are going to be joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss.”

For a heartbeat, utter silence descended on the kitchen. Then the sound of the spatula hitting the edge of the frying pan and clattering to a rest on the countertop broke the spell.

Both Coop and I looked from Rocky to Eddy. She looked as flabbergasted as we were. In fact, I was afraid for a moment she might pitch headlong to the kitchen floor. She covered her eyes with her hands, inhaled, and calmly said, “Let’s eat.”

Ten minutes later we were seated around the kitchen table, stuffing our faces with enchiladas, parsnips, and salad. One part of my brain recognized the food was as awesome as it always was whenever Eddy slapped her cooking hat on, but a much larger part of me paid no attention to the taste. Instead, Rocky’s bomb ripped repeatedly, loud and clear, through my brain.

Usually when Rocky ate, he shoveled one thing at a time into his mouth. He’d hardly look up and rarely uttered a word before the task of feeding himself was complete. I’d learned early on that something in his makeup compelled him to chew his food a certain number of times before he swallowed it, and if he lost count, he’d have to start over. Tonight, however, his jaws flew as he masticated his grub. For the first time since I’d known him, Rocky finished eating before anyone else. And none of us were exactly leisurely diners.

Rocky swallowed his last bite and downed the rest of his grape-flavored Kool-Aid. He set the empty glass down with a thump. “Shay O’Hanlon, we want to be joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss in the Rabbit Hole.”

I nearly spewed out the milk I had just sucked into my mouth. “I—uh—don’t …”

Eddy shot me a withering look.

“Ah, yes, of course you can, Rocky.” I quickly shoved in another mouthful of salad.

Rocky bobbed in his chair like a jack-in-the-box and turned his attention to Coop. “Nick Coop, you are going to be my best man.”

Coop raised his fist and did a knuckle bump with Rocky. “You got it, my man. Do you want a bachelor party?”

I yelped, “Coop!” I couldn’t believe he just said that. Our Rocky—at a strip show?

Coop gave me an innocent look. “What?”

Oblivious to our interchange, Rocky shifted gears again. “Eddy, I want you to be our sermonizer in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss.”

Eddy paled under her brown skin. She said, “Your … your—oh dear. I’m not a person of the cloth, Rocky.”

“You can be,” Rocky told her. “You just have to go on the Internet, and you too can become a person of the cloth even if you do not like the cloth. I looked.”

I stared at Eddy with wild eyes. She was quite wild-eyed herself.

Rocky was oblivious to our facial antics. “Kate and Anna are going to be Tulip’s bridesmaids.”

Before any of us could formulate any kind of appropriate response, Rocky was off on another statistical frenzy. “In 2008, two million one hundred fifty-seven thousand people who were in love got to be joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss.” He swooped his head dramatically toward Coop. “Eight hundred forty-four thousand people got
un
joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss.” With that Rocky jumped up from the table. “I have to go. It is time to Facebook with Tulip.”

I opened my mouth, but Coop beat me. “Rocky, when’s she coming?”

Rocky paused at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. He called over his shoulder, “Day after tomorrow. We will get joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss Wednesday. I do not know what time my Tulip wants to be joined in ultimate holy matrimony and bliss though.” Then he disappeared into the living room.

“Wednesday?” I whispered.

“Oh.” Eddy fanned her face with her hand. “I need to think about this.”

It was a rare moment when Eddy was struck speechless. If I weren’t so stunned, I’d have taken great pleasure in that.

For a full minute the only sounds were forks scraping against Corelle. Then I said, “Can he really get married?”

“Why not?” Coop pushed his chair away from the table and gathered his and Rocky’s dishes. “Could be cute.” He brought them over to the sink.

“Nicholas,” Eddy said sharply, “did you ever talk to that boy about S-E-X?”

I couldn’t help but taunt him. “Yeah, Coop, didja?”

Coop industriously scrubbed at his plate.

“Well, Nicholas?”

“I meant to. Really. I will. Soon. Oh God.”

Eddy brought her plate and silverware to the sink and handed them to Coop. “Here you go. Maybe a little manual labor will improve your memory.”

I cleared the table and added my load of memory improvers to his pile, still reeling. First JT, now Rocky. What could happen next? I didn’t dare contemplate the possibilities.

Eddy rummaged around a cupboard, pulling out mugs and plunking them on the counter with a bang. Her voice was hollow behind the cabinet door. “If there ever was a time for liquid backbone, this is it.”

She was more shaken over Rocky’s news than I realized. She skipped her special concoction ingredients and went right for the whiskey. She set the three glasses, each with about two shots of straight alcohol, on the table.

I picked up the tumbler and watched the amber liquid swirl around the bottom quarter of the cup. I took a tentative sip. The liquor burned its way down my throat and settled hotly in my stomach. I was pretty sure I was going to end up with an ulcer before this was all over. Maybe I needed to learn to meditate to deal with my stress. But who had time to meditate when their girlfriend was accused of murder and locked up by a madman masquerading as a cop?

We needed to keep our eyes on the prize, which was finding Krasski’s killer. Without losing track of Rocky and his upcoming—I could hardly form the word in my mind—nuptials.

To Tulip. Oh man.

Coop finished his manual labor and rejoined us at the table. He settled into the chair with a groan. “I’m too old for this.”

“Young man, you don’t even know what old means.” Eddy fixed the stink-eye on him. Then she said, “Okay. Tell me all about your day. Don’t leave a single thing out.”

I filled her in on finally seeing JT and what had happened. Then, between Coop and I, we gave her the rundown on Taffy and the zoo, and Heidi, AKA Peaches. When we were done, Eddy didn’t say anything for a long minute. Finally, she said, “A live goat—in the house?”

After all that, she got stuck on the goat.

“Yeah,” I said. I was starting to loosen up as the booze flowed through my system. “And a chicken. The goat and the chicken were friends. They played with each other.”

“Okay. That Peaches—”

“Heidi,” I said. “Her name’s Heidi. She used to go by Peaches.”

“Anyway, she knew our JT. Do you feel better now, Shay, after hearing what she had to say?”

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do.” I peered into the depths of my nearly empty cup. “Now we just need to get our act in gear and figure out who the hell pickled Krasski.”

I was about to down the last of my liquid backbone when my cell rang. The readout on the caller ID displayed Tyrell’s number.

“Hey Ty, what’s up?” I hoped maybe he’d say everything had been a huge mistake and that I could go now and scoop JT up from the evil clutches of Detective Clint Roberts.