Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #1) (30 page)

While a motherly little nurse cleaned the wound on my arm with tender care, I could hear someone on the other side of the curtain ordering an IV and ibuprofen for Roz.

“Is she going to be okay?” I asked the nurse.

“Don’t you worry about her,” she said, patting me softly on the hand. “She’s very dehydrated. The fever will probably come down nicely once she soaks up those fluids we’re giving her. She’ll be good in no time.”

On the other side of me, I could hear a woman consulting with Peggy on the dangers of Post-Traumatic Stress in situations like hers, and recommending an antidepressant to stave off the inevitable. Peggy told the woman in no uncertain terms that the only antidepressant she needed was the love of her husband and three boys, and if the woman didn’t let her see them, then and there, she’d have to sue for medical negligence. Besides, her mother’s best friend’s sister had taken those things and that was how she lost all of her hair. She also gave the nurse a quick education on the subject of corrupt pharmaceutical companies only caring about the holy buck, and did she know those companies actually do business with the Mafia? Eventually, the woman acquiesced, calling in the Rubenstein clan, probably still not convinced that Peggy didn’t have a few screws loose.

Howard stayed with me, sitting next to my bed, holding my hand. He told me that when Viviana had unleashed her weapon on me, the only agent able to react fast enough was Smith, who wounded her with several hits, but not mortally. Viviana Buttaro would live long enough to die in jail from lung cancer. Maxine, on the other hand, was teetering precariously in the ICU. She had lost a lot of blood. Even the monkeys made it out alive, he said, after Colt and Peggy released them during their own escape. Although, according to Colt, they didn’t go easily. The monkeys, that is.

When he felt sure I was well enough, he said he really needed to get back to the scene—there were reports to make and interviews to be done. He could be out the rest of the night.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Go get it done.”

“You sure?” Guilt was still written all over his face.

“Does it matter if I’m sure? You’d have to go anyway, right?” I had a new understanding of our lives at present.

He nodded.

“So,” I said, “I don’t know which to ask first: How? Or why?”

Howard didn’t blink. He also didn’t answer up immediately. “They’re both big questions with complicated answers,” he finally said.

“Can you at least give me an abridged version of the ‘How,’ just to tide me over? I feel like the world’s most clueless wife, here.”

He pulled his hands away from mine and ran them through his hair like men do when they don’t want to confront something difficult. He took a deep breath before speaking. “My mother owns a condo near our house. I use it to store my gun and my badge. Park a bureau car there if I’m driving one. If I’m on a tough case, I tell you I’m on travel and I stay there.”

“Your mother?” I asked, unable to believe she had been in on the years of deception.

“That gets into the ‘why.’ It’s . . . can we do this later?” He looked at me ashamed, but at least he was looking me in the eyes.

“Obviously,” I said, “we have a lot of talking to do. I’ll see you when you get home?”

He smiled a very relieved smile. “See you at home.” He kissed me tenderly on the lips and walked away, those ‘FBI’ letters again obvious on his back.

I called after him. “Hey!”

He turned around with a show of concern on his face.

“You look pretty sexy in that jacket,” I teased. “You should’ve let me see it a long time ago.”

He smiled brilliantly and then disappeared behind the sterile curtains that separated me from the rest of the hospital.

Roz was admitted overnight for observation, Peter sitting vigil by her side. They released Peggy and me. Since I didn’t have a husband available to take me home, I got the next best thing—Colt. He’d driven over in Howard’s Camry after a de-briefing by Agency officials.

“Your mother wants to see you,” he said warily in the car.

“No! No, not tonight. I just want to sleep. Please.”

“Got it,” he said, relenting.

“How long have you been in on this?” I asked finally.

“Only since today. Swear. Howie clued me in at your house earlier.”

“The backyard chat?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you known he was with the FBI all this time?”

He shook his head immediately. “No. Not until today. Really.”

“So why did he tell you today?”

“He wanted my help keeping you safe. He was driving me to pick up a rental car when you and Roz got yourselves kidnapped. What were you thinking?”

“Well, you weren’t doing a very good job of keeping me safe, now were you? Besides, why couldn’t you just keep me safe by staying at the house?”

“Well, the original plan was to keep you from worrying by keeping a distance, watching the house and making sure Viviana’s crew stayed away. But then when they showed up, we decided to stow you away at the hotel while I stayed at the house in case they came around again. You were supposed to stay safe at the hotel, remember?”

Embarrassed by my actions, I tried to explain myself. “We had a plan.”

Colt didn’t respond to my excuse.

We stayed quiet for a while until I decided to change the subject to Howard’s alias. “How about his name—he’s Italian? Did you know that?”

“We were very tight in college—he told me everything years ago. It’s a wild story. His name, his old man.”

“His dad was in the Mafia?”

Colt shook his head. “He was an honest businessman. Too honest, too much integrity for his own good. Tito, as far as I understand, was working under a guy who ordered him to make the hit.”

“Frankie and Elvis told me that Tito felt bad about it and took care of him financially—even paid for his college.”

Colt seemed impressed. “No kidding! Really?”

“Did Howard know that?”

“I don’t think so.”

I grew quiet once more, exhaustion rolling over me like a tsunami. I dozed off in the car and had a vague recollection of making it as far as the couch once we reached home. The stairs to my bedroom just seemed too monumental.

When I woke up, my chest still ached and my right arm burned like someone had marked me with a branding iron.

“You okay, Mommy?” Amber’s sweet voice whispered in my ear. I smiled and turned my head to find her, bedecked again in her fairy paraphernalia, waiting for my awakening.

“I’m okay, Sweetie. You?”

“Oh, I’m great! We’re having tacos!”

The air was, in fact, filled with the aroma of Mexican spices, and my stomach growled an expectant growl. Food! Finally!

“Come on, Mommy. We’re waiting.” Careful to grab me by my good arm, Amber pulled me to a sitting position.

“What time is it?” I asked her with only a slight wince of pain.

“Daddy!” she yelled to the kitchen, “what time is it?”

“One forty-five!” Howard’s voice rang back.

Bright, glorious sunlight streamed in through all of my windows. It was a new day, after the scariest night of my life. I pulled my sorry butt off the couch and made my way to find that Colt had chopped and stirred up a fabulous Mexi-feast. My stomach growled again at the colorful sight of it all—tomatoes, lettuce, guacamole, black olives.

Howard was sitting in front of a newspaper with a Corona, and the table was set for three. Looking out the sliding glass doors, I could see Bethany and Callie setting up three places at the table on the deck.

“Who’s eating outside?” I asked Howard.

“The girls wanted to eat out on the deck, but I wasn’t really up for it. You okay in here?”

“Sure.” I nodded, just glad to have him back again.

When I sat down across from him, he put his paper down and gave me a sort of hangdog look. The atmosphere was awkward. I just didn’t quite know what to say. Evidently, neither did he.

“So,” Colt said, breaking the silent moment while pulling taco shells from the oven, “wild night, huh?” After another brief moment of silence, we all started laughing.

“Hey.” I perked up, remembering something that had been gnawing at me. “I still don’t know what happened at House of Many Bones thirty years ago that had everyone so scared. Viviana wouldn’t answer that question.”

Howard explained that little story for me while Colt put bowls of taco condiments on both tables. As bad luck would have it, Viviana and Tito hadn’t owned the White Willow house very long when Tito, a known philanderer, had decided to invite a couple of paid girlfriends over for a kinky threesome. Unbeknownst to Viviana, he had outfitted it with furniture for just that very purpose. Only thing was, when the girls showed up, they were actually men. Undercover cops, disguised as ladies of the night on a routine prostitution sting. The cops had no idea Tito was a wiseguy. When the bust went down inside the house, all guns came out, and while Tito only got grazed in the leg, one cop was shot dead. The other managed to escape out the back door, but Tito chased him down and snuffed him with an axe.

Problem was, said Howard, several neighbors heard the gunshots and came out to investigate. No one had called the police, because Rustic Woods, being what it was in the seventies—quiet and practically country—they all thought it was just someone shooting at a wild animal.

“Needless to say,” said Howard, “they were shocked to find Tito Buttaro holding an axe, standing over a dead man dressed as a woman. Tito, thinking he had no other recourse, told them who he was and what he did for a living, and warned them if they wanted to live to see another day, they’d all go back to their houses and keep quiet.”

“Which they did?” I asked.

“All of them. The Perkins, the Rhineharts, and the MacMillans. Tito and his soldiers came back the next day and made a personal visit to each family, just to push home the point. ‘Don’t talk.’”

“What about the cops?” I asked.

“Their bodies were found in a dumpster in Manassas a few days later. Investigations went nowhere. They never considered that the Mafia was in this area at that time.”

“Wow.” The only word I could muster.

“That’s about it,” agreed Howard.

“What happens to Frankie and Elvis?”

“They’re cooperating and filling in the gaps of information we were missing. They’ll get full amnesty. A couple of funny guys—they’ve never liked killing. That’s why Tito wanted them around—figured he was safe that way. When Viv gave them the order to whack Tito, they cut a deal with him—he stays in hiding, they don’t kill him. And they’re telling us everything about Viviana, down to her shoe size.”

Howard laughed a weak sort of laugh, and shook his head lightly. “She was cooking up a half-baked scheme to sell her houses and bankroll the production of a screenplay she wrote about her own life.” He started digging in his back pocket. “Here, Barb, I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget—I thought you’d get a kick out of this.” He produced a small bit of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a bigger piece. He read from it, laughing. “
Misunderstood—A Mafia Wife Unshackles the Chains of Bondage.
”

Colt had been sitting and feeding himself tacos by now. “Too bad she’s going to jail for a long time—that sounds like a box office winner,” he laughed.

“She claims she was on to us at the end—that’s why she so easily gave up the names to Tito. She’s asking for a deal as an informant.”

“Will she get it?” I asked.

“Is the Pope Jewish?” Howard laughed, grabbing a taco and slapping on a dollop of guacamole. He ate half, then put it down. “I’m too tired to eat.”

He did look done in. A day’s worth of stubble had grown on his face, and the circles under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept at all the previous night. His gorgeous hair looked like it had been through a car wash. He pulled his exhausted body slowly out of his chair. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” I said, “you owe me an explanation.”

“Now? Can’t we do this when we’re alone?”

“Last night—if you had your vest on when No Toes shot you, why weren’t you wearing it later?”

Howard smiled a weak but satisfied smile. “After that numbskull pulled me behind the shed while I played dead, I waited until the coast was clear, then crawled to the back of the house—I found a basement window that was unlocked, but I couldn’t crawl through it with my vest on.”

“How did Officer Brad know to throw you the gun?”

“I lost mine crawling in the mud. I was able to access a land line in the house and patch through to Smith.”

“Geezie Louisie—I’m married to a real life action hero, aren’t I?”

He smiled again and walked out of the room and up the stairs.

“Boy,” said Colt after Howard left, “you guys have been married, what? Ten, twelve years?”

“Seventeen.”

“Wow, has it been that long? Well, anyway, I gotta tell you, after all these years, that guy is just as crazy about you now, as he was back in our first year of college. C-R-A-Z-Y. You gotta love it.” He said.

I smiled.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding his head and finishing his thought, “I know how he feels.”

“So,” I said, deciding to move quickly away from the topic of long-lost love, “do you have a return ticket to L.A.?”