Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #1) (23 page)

“What?”

“I can’t . . . clean myself here.” I winced again, expressing my point best as I could. I was beginning to wish this was being filmed, because frankly, I was turning in an Oscar-winning performance. “I really need a shower or a bathtub. If you know what I mean. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” Then I put my hand to my stomach. “Oh!” I wailed.

“What?” Frankie asked.

“Oh my God. Oh, this isn’t good. I’m feeling another wave . . .”

“This way!” Frankie moved faster than the paparazzi chasing Britney Spears down Sunset Boulevard. Following his lead down the hall, we found ourselves in what appeared to be the back of the main floor. We landed in front of another door, which Frankie threw open in haste. He shoved Roz in and pointed the gun at Peggy and me. “There! Get in!” We did as he said, and the door closed behind us. It seemed that Frankie had had enough of the three crazy ladies from the suburbs.

I flipped on the light switch. We stood in the middle of a nicely appointed, reasonably sized bedroom with a queen-sized bed covered with a black and tan bedspread. A sleek, modern, black dresser took up a large portion of the wall across from the bed. Black satin curtains were pulled back, allowing a view from both corner windows. The room had an obvious masculine feel, and I thought I detected a hint of a familiar male cologne.

“Did you really . . . you know . . . in your pants?” Peggy asked.

“No! Gross.”

“Just wondering. Pretty inventive of you.”

“I’m not so inventive—if you want to know the truth, I nearly had an accident in my van on Purple Poplar the other day. Chili dogs didn’t agree with me.”

“Oh.” She bobbed her head with understanding. “Been there, done that. Has that ever happened to you, Roz?” We both turned to find Roz curled up in a ball on the bed, head in her hands, weeping quietly. Sitting down next to her, I placed my hand on her arm.

“Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded her head and sniffed.

“I’ve never been so scared. He had a gun in my back!”

“I know. Trust me. The gun thing is new to all of us.”

“They’re going to kill us, Barb!”

She had a point. “I know it seems that way, but let’s look at this from the glass-is-half-full perspective. We’re alive right now. As long as we’re alive, it seems to me like we have a fighting chance. There’s at least one policeman out there, obviously working to save our asses, and my guess is the authorities are on their way. Roz, they’ve got Howard—he might be dead, but he might still be alive and if he is, I’m going to do anything I can to save him. We really need to pull ourselves together and figure our way out of this—now. We need to stay alive for our kids’ sakes. Do you really want to leave your kids behind with Peter, doomed to SpaghettiO’s dinners for the rest of their childhood years?”

She wiped her eyes and sat up, sniffing a few more times. “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I can do this.”

Peggy had been checking the three different doors in the room. The first two had been closets. “Hmm,” she said, opening closet two, “men’s clothes. He likes black.” She opened the third door. Jackpot.

“Here it is,” she said. “Now what?” Getting up from Roz’s side, I stepped over and looked in. More black and tan. Black towels, black rug, tan soap dish and toothbrush caddy.

“I don’t know. He just told me to get myself here. I guess we just sit and wait.”

“We can’t wait for too long,” said Roz, the sniffles winding down. “You’re just supposed to be ‘cleaning up,’ remember? That can’t take forever.”

I spied a small frosted window on the wall opposite the sink. “Maybe we aren’t supposed to wait. Maybe we’re supposed to go out that window.” Moving to twist the latch open, my hands stopped mid-air at the sound of shouting.

“What’s going on in there?” It was Frankie. Peggy closed the bathroom door, leaving me alone. I decided to lock the door for added safety. All I could hear were muffled voices.

“She’s almost done,” Peggy shouted back. Since they were the only words I could hear clearly, and since they sounded especially loud, I assumed she had meant for me to hear her. I put the toilet seat down and sat, my back to the black shower curtain. Muffled voices drifted through the closed door, but I couldn’t make out clear sentences anymore. Suddenly, a crack of lightning lit up the frosted window pane, followed immediately by near deafening thunder that shook the house to its rafters. The lights popped off and women screamed. Definitely Peggy and Roz. Before I could jump up, the shower curtain behind me swung open and a strong, calloused hand grasped my mouth, squelching the scream that was about to escape.

Chapter Eighteen

I WAS JERKED INTO THE bathtub. Animalistic fight-or-flight instincts took over, and I thrashed about wildly in the pitch-black room. My attempts at escape seemed futile, since I was obviously struggling with a large, strong man. There was also that familiar cologne scent from the bedroom. I was beginning to wish I had joined my mother in her venture to master the martial art of Tae Kwon Do. A black belt would have been helpful in such a situation. It was times like this, I thought, that hindsight was definitely 20/20. I quickly calculated that the next best thing to a black belt was teeth—and I had those. I pulled at the man’s hands as hard as I could, making just enough room to open my lips and go for a chomp. Unfortunately, the sadly weak bite only caused a temporary release in the strength holding me. Definitely not enough to allow me a chance to flee. I remained bound by his arms, one of his hands still cupping my mouth. He whispered in my ear.

“Lady, stop fightin’ me!” It was Elvis! My panic quadrupled. Now I knew I was a dead woman, the first nail pounded securely into my awaiting coffin. He whispered in my ear again. “Listen, will ya? Settle.” It was true what they say—your life does start passing before your eyes as you stand on the threshold of death. Mental pictures flashed like images in a slide show. Me blowing out candles on my fifth birthday; my dad pushing me off on a triumphantly successful glide when I was trying to learn to ride my shiny blue bike; my parents standing on either side of me, cap on my curly mess of a head the day I graduated from high school; my best friend, Julie, and me, holding up mugs of beers and smiling joyously the day I turned twenty-one; Howard and me on our perfectly sunny wedding day; me holding a newborn Callie in my arms; Bethany presenting me with her personal Mother-of-the-Year Award at her preschool Mother’s Day party; Amber beautifully costumed as Tinker Bell last Halloween . . . each new picture of my life seemed to bring me greater and greater strength to survive. I couldn’t die. I was a mother and I would live to see my children again! I must have slowed my struggle as all of the thoughts rushed through my mind, because Elvis whispered in my ear again.

“There. That’s good.” Everything seemed to move in slow motion. “Now,” he continued in a muted tone, “I have a message for you from Sammy.”

Who? Where had I just heard that name? Sammy, Sammy . . . I was running the name through my memory data bank. I wasn’t registering that name. Then BANG! I got a match. I felt a loosening on Elvis’ grip over my mouth and I pulled away enough to shout, “Do you mean Howard?” Another crack of lightning lit up the room for a second, sending another shock wave through the house.

“Shhhhhh!” Elvis cupped my mouth again. “You gotta be quiet. This ain’t gonna work if you don’t keep it down!” What was he saying? What ain’t gonna work? I was confused, but he had my attention. I needed to hear what he had to tell me about Howard. “You gonna fight me? You gonna scream?” I shook my head “no.” He released his grip on my mouth. I was panting like a sheep dog on a hundred-degree day. Elvis removed his arm from its hold around my body and it sounded like he was rooting around in his pants. The next thing I knew, the bathroom was dimly lit by the flame of his disposable lighter.

Our bodies were embarrassingly entwined in the bathtub, with my legs sticking straight up in the air. I must have hit my elbow on the side when he’d pulled me into it, because it ached now. I rubbed it, becoming simultaneously aware that Roz and Peggy were calling out my name in loud whispers. Elvis put his finger to his mouth, letting me know I still needed to keep things mum, then whispered, “Tell ’em to keep it down, that you got you a plan.” I nodded obediently, still not sure if this action would end in self-preservation or self-annihilation. I crawled out of the bathtub, moving toward the door on my hands and knees.

They were just on the other side of the door, whispering to me again. “Barb! Are you okay?” They were trying the door knob, but it was still locked.

“Keep it down!” I whispered. I actually didn’t know why we had to be whispering, but that’s what the man had ordered, so I figured it was necessary for some reason. “Keep it down—I . . . I . .” I had a momentary lapse in memory, forgetting what I was supposed to say.
Oh yeah!
“I got me a plan,” I whispered back through the door.

“What?”

“I mean, I’ve got a plan.”

“Let us in.” I looked to Elvis to see if that was allowed. He was having some difficulty extracting his large frame from the small tub, and our meager light flicked out briefly every time his thumb lost contact with the lighter igniter. He shook his head, telling me they had to stay out.

“Why?” I asked him.

Peggy heard me, and thinking I was talking to them, answered. “Why not? Come on, open the door!”

Having successfully rolled himself out of the tub enclosure, Elvis got down on one knee, moved in as close as he could to my ear and whispered into it. “Ax ’em where’s Frankie at, anyway?”

“Where’s Frankie?”

“We don’t know,” Peggy replied.

Elvis repeated his mouth-to-ear whisper maneuver, which was really starting to gross me out. “Ax ’em is da bedroom door open, or closed?”

“Is da bedroom door open or closed?”

“Why are you talking like that?”

It was a strange habit I had, picking up accents easily. The last time we visited my great Aunt Gertrude Fenstermacher in Sheboygan, it only took me ten minutes to start uttering, “ja?” and “Ach mein Gott!”

“Is it opened or closed? Just tell me.”

“Must be closed. It’s pitch-black, but I didn’t hear anyone open it. Frankie told us to stay put when the lights went out and I think he went off somewhere. Wait . . . there’s a little light . . . from under this door. Do you have light in there? Did you find a flash light?”

Elvis moved in again for yet another command and finally, repulsion got the best of me. I just couldn’t stand his slobbery lips tickling my ear anymore. Without thinking about the consequences, I shouted at him, and put my hands up to pre-empt the inevitable. “Don’t do that again! Come on! Ask them yourself! And why are we whispering, anyway?”

“We can’t lets Viv and Max hear—why you tink?”

Curiosity must have been getting the best of them, because I heard them fiddling with the door knob. It sounded like they were trying to unlock it.

“Barb!” Peggy said. “What’s going on?” Before I knew what was happening, the door was falling open and Peggy was tumbling into the bathroom and onto the hard tile floor with Roz falling on top of her. In Peggy’s hand was a hair pin. Exactly at the same time, a strange rumbling, almost chugging sound like the sound of a lawn mower being started, preceded the slow return of electricity to the house. Instead of popping on, like I’m used to after a power outage, the lights came on dimly at first, then gaining in intensity, as if the electricity was getting to them slowly.

“Generator,” Elvis informed us. “Frankie’s the only one besides me knows how to start that ting.” Wide eyed and startled, like two bush babies caught in the light of a nocturnal nature photographer, Roz and Peggy were frozen in an awkward pile on the floor. They stared at Elvis, then at me, and luckily, didn’t say a word.

Elvis handed me my cell phone. “Here, call Sammy.” He shook his head and corrected himself. “Howard. Call Howard. He wants to talk to yous.” I blew out an exuberant sigh of relief, taking the phone from his hand. My Howard was still alive. There was hope. Maybe Officer Brad was with him. Maybe they had the place surrounded. Those SWAT helicopters were on their way, after all.

While I touched the number one and “talk” on my phone, connecting me to Howard’s cell, Elvis reprimanded Roz and Peggy. “Yous two there—get in here and close dat door! Yous want to mess dis whole ting up?” He pointed to the bathtub. “In there,” he said. I understood his point. Even though the house was massively large, the bathroom we were occupying was quite small. Roz and Peggy climbed sheepishly into the cramped tub, facing each other and hugging their knees.

There were two rings and then connection. “Barb?” It was Howard! The last time I remembered being so excited to hear his voice was the time he called me from the grocery store to tell me he was bringing home wine from a bottle instead of from a box. Immediately, though, I could tell the connection was bad.

“Howard?” Nothing. He was gone. I looked at the display on my phone. I’d lost the connection. I only had one little flickering bar. Not now! No, no, no!!!! I shook the phone, as if that would bring him back on the line. Getting an emotional grip, I touched “one” and hit “talk” again. Weak rings connected to a barely audible Howard. “Crackle, crackle . . . Bar, crackle, crackle . . . me?” Dead again.