“You sure she was okay,” Rosey said without looking at me.
“Positive. She was surly. Surly is good for my mother.”
“She want to know why we were coming?”
“No. I told her that we were tying up loose ends on our last case. My mother asks enough questions without my giving her a reason.”
“She’ll have plenty of questions when she sees your face. The double shiners look really attractive on you.”
“No doubt. Is my nose crooked?”
“After my cosmetic reconstructive snap-it-back-into-place maneuver? Of course not.”
“It still hurts a little. Check that. It hurts a lot.”
“And will continue so for a while. No doubt sensitive to touch.”
He moved his right hand away from the steering wheel towards me.
“Don’t you dare. I’ll shoot you. Honest I will.”
He smiled at me. “Just teasing, kid.”
“I just hope I don’t get a runny nose. Couldn’t bear to blow it. I’m just thankful it’s not crooked.”
“You worry about the wrong things.”
“Actually I wasn’t worried about it at all when Saunders hit me. She knocked me out as I recall. It was only later, when I realized I wasn’t dead, that I was concerned for my nose.”
“You mean your appearance,” he said.
“Whatever.”
“Whatever, indeed. Vanity, thy name is woman.”
“You’re misquoting Shakespeare. I believe the word is frailty.”
“You’re not frail. You’re vain.”
“And I love you, too.”
“I only meant that you seem to be more concerned about how you look than any damage done to your body,” he tried to explain.
“I think the two things are connected. The damage done to my body causes me to look bad.”
“Actually the nose job done to you makes you look attractive, you know, in a raw kind of way.”
“Raw?” I said.
“Yeah, like a street fighter. Someone who roams about looking for the bad guys and willing to risk life and limb to take them down.”
“Yep, that would be me. Clancy, the raw street fighter. With the broken nose.”
Chapter 16
It was raining in Clancyville when we arrived. My mother’s aging two-story white house had changed little since I left home years ago. She kept the place up, but changed nothing.
“So who won the fight?” mother asked while we sat around the kitchen table indulging ourselves with coffee and apple pie. Sam was faking sleep under the table, waiting for some crust pieces to fall to the floor. Ever alert.
“Let’s just say that I got away without any permanent damage,” I said.
“Did you inflict any damage on the other guy?”
“Wasn’t a guy … well, one of them was. The black eyes came from the woman named Saunders. You remember her?”
“Of course I do. I don’t have dementia as yet,” she snapped. “Aren’t the police looking for her in connection with the murders here?”
“Yes, but Rosey and I were the only ones who found her.”
“Actually, she found us. Me first, then Clancy,” Rosey said.
“Why didn’t you alert the authorities?” she said and took a sip of her coffee.
“I was incapacitated at the time.”
I broke off a small piece of crust and tried to smuggle it to Sam under my mother’s ever-watchful eye.
“You were her prisoner. Don’t feed the dog from the table,” she said.
“Something like that. It’s a small piece of crust.”
“Why were you looking for her?”
“I wasn’t. I was looking for Rosey. When he left here, I lost contact for nearly two weeks, so I began searching for him.”
“Found Saunders instead?”
“Saunders found me. It was a trap. She had Rosey as her prisoner, and then she had me. Not my finest hour.”
“To say the least,” she added. “So how did such a strong, virile man like you allow a woman like Saunders to get the drop on you?”
“It’s a long story,” Rosey confessed. He then told her what he could remember and what the two of us had pieced together since. We brought her up to speed with our tales of woe.
“So you were both worried about me and came here to protect me even though Saunders had out-foxed both of you for several days, and beat you to a pulp.”
“You don’t sound too appreciative of our concern,” I said.
Sam nudged my right knee reminding me that he was in dire need of another piece of crust, if not a portion of the pie itself.
“I can take care of myself, thank you. It appears I can do a better job than the two of you.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s a package in the shed out back that came for me yesterday. No return address, brown paper, addressed to me with a poorly written script using a black marker, and tied with some string. I suspected it to be a bomb, so I put it out in the shed where the Studebaker used to live.”
Mom’s Studebaker was stolen just a few weeks back by Saunders and one of her hired idiots when we were trying to catch the Peace Haven killer. The local police impounded the car once they found it. The last time I had seen her car it was living at B &R Auto Repair on Business Highway 29 North at the edge of Clancyville’s city limits.
“Why didn’t you call the sheriff?” Rosey said.
“You’re kidding, right?” mother said.
“You should have notified somebody,” I added.
“I knew you would be here sooner or later, so I waited to tell you.”
“And you figured this to be a bomb because….?” I said.
“Because I was married to the best lawman this county has ever known and we talked about things like bombs and weapons and crazy people with guns. He told me what to be alert for and I listened. Bill Evans knew his stuff.”
I couldn’t argue with her. My father was a good police officer. I learned much from simply observing him as he worked. I just watched him do what he did every day. Only occasionally did he actually try to teach me. He was hesitant in that. I don’t think he wanted me to get involved in law enforcement, but it was as natural a thing for me as drinking black coffee.
Rosey and I walked to the shed out back. My mother, Rachel Jo Evans, remained in the house drinking her coffee and finishing her pie. Calmly. Potential bomb in the shed out back and she calls no one. Nerves of steel or brain of mush. Go figure.
Rachel had placed the package in the center of the dirt floor of the shed. It was nearly ten inches square and wrapped as my mother had described to us. She missed no detail.
“Dare we open it?”
“Risky,” I said.
“I have some training in this, but it’s been years since I dealt with a real bomb.”
Rosey looked around the shed as if searching for something. He spotted an old charcoal grill in the corner, retrieved the lid and returned to the package close to where I was standing.
“Like that is going to protect you,” I said.
“Better than nakedness.”
“Only slightly.”
“You have anything better to offer?”
“Let’s call Dan River or Richmond. Let’s a get bomb squad out here. They have the right gear to use.”
“That’s probably what Saunders wants. If she wanted to kill your mother, your mother would be dead now. She could have rigged a bomb to blow on a timer. You get my drift? She watches the house, waits until the bomb is taken inside, and then … kaboom! Rachel Jo Evans is no more.”
“Okay, so what is your plan?”
“Let me open the box and we can see what Saunders has inside.”
“You’re assuming that Saunders sent this,” I said.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes, I guess so. Making good on her threat to make me suffer.”
“You go stand outside, leave the door open, and watch.”
“Watch y
ou get blown up? I don’t think so. I’m going inside to finish my coffee and pie.”
“Wow, a true friend.”
“And what could I do if the thing goes off?”
“Good point. I’m already dead by the time you could get to me to offer any help.”
“Precisely,” I said as I turned to re-enter the house and wait for the explosion.
I sat down at the table and began eating the pie. I could tell that my mother was staring at me. I took a sip of coffee.
“Do you have anymore coffee? This needs to be heated,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“Finishing my pie.”
“What is Roosevelt doing?”
“Unwrapping the bomb,” I said as I stood at the sink pouring fresh coffee into my cup.
“So you are willing for him to be killed while you eat apple pie and drink coffee?”
“That’s pretty much it,” I said.
“What kind of friend are you?”
“A live one.”
“Go check on him.”
“I’m waiting for either an explosion or for him to come back into the kitchen and tell me what he found.”
“Coward.”
“This pie is really good, Mother.”
Chapter 17
Waiting for an explosion is not the easiest of tasks. Too much potential excitement I suspect. I finished my second cup of coffee, put my cup and empty pie plate in the sink, and sat back down at the kitchen table.
My mother was pacing nearby in the dining area. She was silent. After several minutes, she walked to the backdoor and looked out towards the shed. She had her back to me.
“Go check on him,” she said.
“He’ll come inside, if he can.”
“What do you mean ‘if he can’?”
“If there is no explosion, he will come back inside and tell us what we need to know.”
“You’re a real charmer, you know that.”
Rosey opened the screen door. My mother was standing in the doorway inside. I knew her well enough to know that she was waiting on some kind of explanation from him.
“What did you use to protect yourself?” she asked.
“The top of the old grill you had out there.”
“Kind of a thin shield.”
“It was all you had.”
“I don’t usually think of equipping myself with bomb protection gear. Not standard for living in rural Virginia usually. What did you find?”
“Let’s talk inside. I need some coffee.”
“You need something stronger than coffee,” Rachel said.
Rosey sat down at the table. I poured him a cup of hot coffee, set it in front of him, and sat down. We both watched my mother retrieve a small stool, place it in front of the cabinet to the left of the sink, retrieve a bottle of something from the top shelf and joined us at the table.
Before she sat down, she placed a decorative bottle of Crown Royal© on the table in front of Rosey.
“As you probably already know, this is good blended Canadian Whiskey that is thirty-seven years old. I bought this a week after Bill Evans died. Add this to your coffee or drink it straight. Either way, it might settle whatever you need settled.”
Rosey and I stared at my mother in disbelief.
“What?” she said.
“I had no idea, Mother.”
“Precious, there is a great deal you do not know about me. Likely enough, you never will.”
She watched Rosey pour about a double shot into his coffee cup.
“You need anymore, it’s up there,” she said as she took the bottle and put it back on the top shelf.
“That’s sufficient for now, thank you,” Rosey said.
He took a few long drinks of his coffee mixture.
“It was a pipe bomb and attached to a cell phone. It could have been triggered at any time. It was waiting on a call,” he said.
“Anything else?” I said.
“Just this note,” he said and placed a sheet of notebook paper on the table in front of us. The note read, Gotcha!
“She had no intention of detonating that bomb,” my mother said.
“True. She wanted us to find that note and experience some fear along the way,” I said.
“Which we did,” Rosey said. “Some of us more than others.”
“I was afraid,” I offered. “That’s why I came into the house to finish my pie.”
“And valiant, too,” he said.
“Did you dismantle the bomb?” I said.
“Cut the cell phone out of the circuit.”
“What if she has a backup detonator?”
“Then your mother will have to build a new shed.”
“I’ll call a friend in Norfolk. He will know what to do with it,” I said.
“So what next?” my mother asked. “Do you think she will come after me again?”
“Well, this is the way she tends to be operating. She puts a person in harm’s way and then allows them to escape and then … well, I don’t know what happens next. Rosey and I are at the same place you are. We have received the shot across the bow, so to speak.”
“What did she say to you, Clancy?” Rosey asked.
“Her mantra was that she wanted me to suffer, to feel pain. She told her sidekick Dooley that she did not want me to escape, and yet she left him in charge. She had to know that he was inept and that I was more than capable of getting away from him.”
“I agree. She’s too smart to not secure you in such a way to prevent an escape. She hurt you, but she wanted you to get away.”
“What are you thinking?” I said.
“I think she wants to hurt you in as many ways as possible. She wants you to suffer all kinds of pain. We have to figure a way to get ahead of her.”
Sam came over and put his large head in my lap. I scratched behind his ears and listened to him offer up an ecstatic moan of satisfaction.
“I have a rather novel notion,” I said.
“Novel notion,” Rosey said.
“No doubt.”
“What makes it so novel a notion?” he said
“No one in my line of work would … should ever think of such a notion.”
“So, please. Enlighten us with your novelty,” Rosey said.
“I’ll put a contract out on her and let her dodge bullets for a spell.”
“A contract,” Rosey echoed.
“Yes.”
Both Rosey and my mother were speechless with my novel idea. Dumfounded may have been closer to the truth.
“I think that’s against the law,” Mother said.
“Oh, it is, surely,” I answered. “But that’s what makes it so exciting, don’t you think?”
“What I think is that you are crazy. You can’t do that. You can’t break the law just to stop a criminal. Your father would be ashamed of you for suggesting such a thing.”
“Actually the idea comes from my father.”
Chapter 18
After my mother calmed down and allowed me to explain, I convinced her that I was not misrepresenting Bill Evans.
“It’s a bluff,” I said. “Convince the bad guy that someone is after him, or her.”
“How do we do that?” Rosey said.
“We hire an assassin to go after Saunders.”
“You make it sound so easy. Just thumb through the phone book and find someone who murders for hire. Do we look under assassins or snipers? And when they catch you, and they will, how many years is it you will be serving?”
Mother’s sarcasm was well directed and at times entertaining.
“No, wait,” Mother said. “Look under the heading of Stupid Ideas. You’ll find a name there and it won’t be assassin listed. It’ll be my idiotic daughter.”
Mother was on a roll.
“I know someone who owes me a favor. This will pay off the debt. Besides, I have no intention of hiring an assassin to actually kill Saunders. I want her caught and tried for what she’s done. She�
�s a maniacal serial killer. Stopped is my primary objective.”
Rosey had finished his spiked coffee and was smiling.
“It’s different,” he said. “I like it.”
“You like it?” Mother chimed in. “Now you both are brain-damaged. You can’t do this. It’s just not right. You were raised better.”
“I was raised by my mother and father to think, to use my imagination, my wits, and good strategy to catch people who break the law.”
“But it’s wrong to break the law yourself in trying to apprehend even a killer,” she said.
“I agree, and I have no intention of breaking the law.”
Mother glared at me for several moments. I knew she was turning something over. We were enough alike in that department.
“You’re bending it.”
“But not breaking.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you. I have too much to do. Your Aunt May is coming to supper tonight. I need to start fixing something for us to eat.”
Food prep had become my mother’s diversion. Whenever she would be losing an argument or debate with my father, her default position would be to go to the kitchen and cook. Safety among the spices.
Aside from my Aunt Mildred, whom I adored, my Aunt May was definitely on the short list of people I loved and appreciated. She had recently bought a house in the country, just outside of Clancyville. Her husband, my Uncle Oswald Castinoe, had died a few years back and she decided to move closer to her sister, my mother, Rachel Jo Evans. Aunt May was the youngest of the three Clancy kids who inherited the small fortune from my grandfather, William Tilden Clancy, II. The town had been formed and named after his father, William Tilden Clancy. W.T. the first.
I should mention that my family was Baptist in terms of religious persuasion due chiefly to the presence of the large Baptist church in Clancyville. There could be more to it than that, but I generally stayed clear of drawing denominational lines. However, to her credit and my mother’s ire, my Aunt May became an Episcopalian after she had married my Uncle Oswald. His ancestors had come from England where the Anglicans had ruled supreme for years, so it was quite natural that Oswald would bring the errant Episcopalians to the Baptist table when he fell in love with Aunt May. At least that was my mother’s slanted take on the whole affair. Her history lessons were sometimes skewed a little.
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