Take the Money: Romantic Suspense in Costa Rica (25 page)

The shots hadn’t come close, but there was another urgent problem: the falling temperature. Bitter cold wind stung Julie’s cheeks.  Her eyebrows, damp from the humid meth lab, were crusting with ice.  Mom was in danger of freezing to death if they didn’t find shelter soon, but her lack of boots and outer gear made it easier for her to move fast and keep her blood circulating.

They had to keep going.  Headlights trolling back and forth across the bridge seemed tantalizingly close.  Julie envied the people who were warm and safe in their vehicles, worried only about getting to their destinations on time.

“We’re gonna make it,” Julie called out, just as a splash of light bled out across the snow.  Someone in the trailer down the road had been alerted.  They couldn’t go that way now; it would make them an easy target.  They were trapped.

There was only one other way: east to the river.  She hoped the ice was hard frozen, but it was their only choice.  Time was running out.  She grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her along.

“We’re headed to the river,” Maggie protested.  “We might fall in.”

“Stay near the edge, we’ll be fine.”  Julie tore some branches from a bush and handed one to her mom.  “Use this if we start to slide or if the ice begins to give,” she said. “Now let’s move.”

They headed north along the river’s edge, lumpy with dead vegetation and ice-coated rocks that made them slip, and slowed them down. They needed to move farther out onto the ice where they could run faster.  Another shot whizzed past their heads, spurring them on.  Moments later, Julie heard a loud brittle crack, then a long anguished cry: “Help me! I’m falling.” 

They stopped to look back.  Cody’s white hair was a silvery ball twirling in the moonlight, and his arms flailed at the ice where he’d fallen through.

“We can’t let him drown,” Maggie said.

“Why not?” Julie asked, but knew that her mother’s instinct as a nurse was to save lives--even worthless ones.

Maggie moved toward Cody, holding out a stick, but Julie yanked her by the arm and pulled her back.  The ice cracked again. Nearly blind with panic, Julie looked for something to hang onto, when she heard a voice near the shore calling, “Maggie, take hold of this limb.”

She saw the dark outline of a man and pushed her mother in his direction, watching in relief as he pulled her to shore.  Both of them stood and extended the long tree limb to Julie until at last, she was safe, too.

“It’s Mike Basinki,” Maggie said.  “He’s our friend, don’t worry.”

“You’re freezing,” Mike said to Maggie. “Take my coat.  My car’s nearby.”

Julie was grateful for this man, whoever he was.  Her mother was coming down with bone-deep shivers; it was urgent that she get out of the cold.  They heard Cody again, his strangled cries like that of wounded cat.

Maggie said, “We have to help him.”

“I’ll call 911 as soon as we get in the car.” Mike said.

Maggie turned back toward Cody, but Julie held onto her.  Mike took her other arm, and the two of them half-carried her to the car.

Later, Julie would try to remember how long they had waited.  She could have sworn it was twenty minutes, but Mike said it was only five.  It was too late. By the time sirens wailed and ambulance lights flashed across the river, there was only a black hole where Cody had gone under. The EMT’s weren’t equipped to venture onto cracked ice, and it was obvious it would be an unjustified risk. Cody’s body would surface in the spring, they said.

Maggie’s shoulders shook and huge sobs erupted from her chest.  Julie tried to muster some sympathy for the man who’d followed her to Costa Rica with intent to kill, then come back to kidnap her mother, but she could feel only  relief that it was over.  Still, there was the backpack she’d managed to pick up at Cody’s.   Blood money now, for sure. 

Maggie wiped her eyes and sat up straight. “I have to get home,” she said. “Jed’s waiting.”

Mike said, “I’ve already called him, he’s meeting us at the police station.”

“Police?”  Maggie’s eyes got a wild look. “You have to be kidding.”

“Look,” Mike told her, “Cody’s dead now.  Their interest in him, or whatever he was going to do to you and how they would profit from it, is over.”

“So why bother making a report at all?”  Maggie’s bitterness was evident.

Mike said, “because only a few of them were working with Cody.  Anyway, the sheriff is involved now. He’s an OK guy, on the up and up.  I’ll tell him what really happened and he’ll make it his business to find out who these guys are.  But he’ll have to do it in his own way, working with the Chief of Police. Besides, there’s been an accidental death here; we’re witnesses, we can’t just walk away.”

“So what do I say in the report?” Maggie asked. “Do I happen to mention that the police stopped by to warn Cody?  That they didn’t care if he killed me?”

“Definitely. Tell the prosecutor everything. And I have someone else who can probably provide identification and corroborate your story, someone who heard them talking about Cody having a woman tied up.”

Julie said: “Is that how you knew we were here?”

“Yes, and I think my buddy Kenny would be willing to talk.  He wasn’t too fond of Cody.”  Mike started the motor, backed out onto the road, and headed toward the bridge. 

* * *

When they left the police station at two in the morning, a minor decision had to be made about their two cars.  Who would go home with whom? Jed lifted an eyebrow when Maggie said, ”I’ll go with Julie, she shouldn’t drive alone after all she’s been through.” 

“Why don’t we pick up Julie’s car tomorrow?” Jed asked.

“No!” Maggie insisted.  “Julie and I are going home together.” 

Jed’s eyes went from his wife to Julie, a look of annoyance flashing across his face.   “Do you think it’s wise?   What if Cody’s friend is around?”

“You can follow us to be sure we’re safe.”

“No, the three of us our going together.  I’m not taking any chances.”

Julie didn’t care about the driving arrangements, and she didn’t want to upset Jed, so she quickly agreed. The three of them drove home in battered silence.

The detectives had taken a statement from each of them individually in private rooms, but hadn’t asked Julie about the money. They had seemed more interested in the details of Kevin’s murder, Maggie’s abduction, and Cody’s accidental death. 

Now that it was all over, Julie was coming down with a case of guilt that felt like the onset of a chronic disease.  Her selfish choices had caused a chain reaction of grief for Jed and Mom since the day she’d come back to Lewiston and allowed her own needs to eclipse theirs.  How could she ever make it up to them?

Although it was nearly dawn, the house was lit up like a hotel--proof that Jed had been too distraught to worry about wasting electricity. The neighbors were probably busting with curiosity.  Jed dropped them at the door and went on to the garage while Julie helped Maggie inside.

The answering machine was blinking on the desk in the hallway.  Maggie pressed the button without taking off her coat. 

“Hello,” said a perky feminine voice.  “This is Debbie Jones from the Lewiston Star.  We understand you were involved in an accident tonight over near the river.  Please call me at 234-4995.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Julie asked.

“I’m not going to tell them anything,” Maggie said.  “And neither are you.”

Julie was surprised at the sharp edge to her mother’s voice.  “Why not?”

“Because I said so,” Maggie said “I’m telling you not to discuss this with anyone. A TV reporter is probably going to be calling tomorrow.  Your only comment will be ‘no comment.’  I don’t want our names dragged through the mud any more than necessary.  Jed and I have responsible jobs with respectable institutions, we have to live here and face people.”

“I’ve embarrassed you, I understand you want it to be kept quiet.  But Cody kidnapped you and drowned.  Everyone will know.” 

“Of course, they can’t cover that up, there were too many people at the river tonight.  But the official story will be that he was stalking me, trying to get at you because you witnessed your employer’s murder.  The sheriff and the prosecutor will take credit for another drug bust, and that will be the end of it.”

Julie took at good look at her mother’s scratched puffy face, hair smashed against the back of her head and blue eyes rimmed with black circles. “But
you
were almost killed,” she said, sobs erupting from her throat.

“Look, it’s over, Cody’s dead.”  Maggie put an arm around Julie’s shoulder and held her tight as Jed came in the door, stamping snow from his feet.  It was ridiculous, Julie knew.  Her mother had gone through hell and yet she was the one doing the comforting.

Jed said, “Your mother needs to go upstairs, take a shower, and get to bed. Now that she’s seen you, I think she’ll be able to get some sleep.  We’ll talk about all of this later.”  There was something in her stepfather’s voice that told Julie he wasn’t feeling as kindly toward her as her mother.

A pang of the old rage shot through her system.  The feeling that Jed was trying to put distance between her and Mom.  But it was time to get over that.  “Of course,” she said.

“And you too, darling.  You’ve had a long flight, then having to drive home in this weather--” Maggie smoothed Julie’s hair away from her face.

Reluctantly, Julie went upstairs to her old room.  She closed the door, took off her coat, and checked her backpack.

She’d been so sure the money would be used for some good purpose, or that it would save her mother’s life.  Now, she realized that even though Cody was dead, her problems were far from over.  In the bathroom she wiped Cody’s blood from the packet of socks, cut the knots with nail scissors, and flushed the string down the toilet.  Hard to fathom the journey these bills had taken.

Jed brought up the subject while she was fixing coffee the next morning.  Both of them were up early, and the paper hadn’t yet arrived “There’s something I don’t quite understand,” he began.  “The night you got home, you told Cody you had his money. So what happened to it? Was it in the backpack you brought home from the police station last night?”

Julie was pouring coffee, but his words rattled her into missing the cup. “Ouch,” she said, backing away and licking her fingers.  She took some ice cubes from the freezer, put them in a plastic bag, and pressed it to her inflamed skin.   But Jed wasn’t giving up.

“How much money was he talking about, exactly?” he asked.

“Not as much as you might think.”

“Still.  You must have had something to pay your expenses to San Jose.”

“I had some money in my savings account.”

“Which you didn’t use, your bankbook is still in your room. And how would you have had time to get to the bank before you left?”

So they had snooped around in her stuff.  Julie’s cheeks burned, but she knew she had no right to be mad. She didn’t want Mom and Jed sucked into any more of her troubles.  The more they knew, the worse it might be for them.  The decision about the money had to be her own moral dilemma, not theirs.

“It’s true that Kevin gave me some money the night he was killed,” she said.  “But I had to spend some, as you’ve mentioned, and some of it I used to help some desperate people.”

“Why were they desperate?”

“Haven’t you heard about the earthquake in El Salvador?”

“I haven’t been paying much attention to international news, lately.”

Of course, they’d had nothing on their minds since she left but trying to figure out what had happened to her.  She held the ice cubes against her throbbing head.  “Don’t worry yourself about the money,” she said. “I don’t want this to create another problem for you and Mom.”

“If it’s your problem, it’s Maggie’s problem.  You know that as well as I do.  If you’re carrying around some drug money, it needs to be reported right away.”

“Reported?  To whom?”

“ I’m not sure.  The police, I suppose.”

“The police?  Oh, you mean the ones who knew Mom was kidnapped and did nothing about it?”

“The FBI, maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what law abiding people do when they find large sums of money.”

“I didn’t find it, Jed. A man who paid for it with his life gave it to me. I haven’t tried to launder it or use it for illegal purposes.”

“What about the IRS?  Aren’t they supposed to know about it?”

“Possibly.”  Julie was thinking about her $25,000 contribution to the Bishops Relief Fund.  She hadn’t thought about it at the time, but wouldn’t that be tax deductible? 
Oh, sure.  Get real, girl.

Jed arranged coffee and toast on a tray and turned to take it upstairs.” Whatever you do,” he said, “Don’t put Maggie through anything else”

Julie sank into a chair after he’d gone.  She had to get out of this house for everyone’s sake.  There was only one place in the world where she wanted to be. She stuck some bread in the toaster and rummaged in the refrigerator for orange juice.  Already, she was missing her gallo pinto and Costa Rican coffee.  At eight thirty, the door bell chimed.