Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery

by Kappes, Tonya

  Out of the rearview mirror, I saw that Pastor did a double-take my way. Gracefully, he put his hands on the smalls of the locals’ backs and guided them away from me.

  I grabbed my hobo and jumped out of the Old Girl.

  “Pastor! Pastor!” I screamed and jogged toward him. The louder I yelled the faster his legs moved.

  The two locals turned around but he didn’t.

  When Pastor Wilson did turn around, all I could see was the same anger I had seen when I was fifteen years old when he called me a little blackmailer.

  Every Christmas they would open their home to one lucky orphan from the orphanage and spoiled them with lavish gifts.

  That one particular Christmas I was on my best behavior and I did want them to pick me, which they did. Once they got me home and sat me down, only then did I realize the rules they expected me to play by.

  You will do a testimony in front of the church congregation at Christmas Eve service. You will tell them how great it is in our home and how thankful you are for us picking you. Plus you will ask to be baptized. You will write an article to the Walnut Grove paper saying how great the Wilsons are and the church made you feel so welcome. And you will smile the entire time doing it or we will take you right back to the orphanage where you can eat slop instead of a fine turkey meal on Christmas Day.

  Instead of playing by their rules, I played by my own. Little did the Wilsons know that I had a natural knack for hacking, namely bank accounts. So after our “little chat,” I happily agreed to be all grateful for the charity, but Laurel London didn’t take no one’s charity, not even a Baptist preacher. Their computer was right there in the guest bedroom. Prime picking for a con like me.

  I did my magic. The next thing I knew, I was down at the local Wal-Mart picking up my online order with Derek…right there to give me a hand.

  So when I needed a place to live and he owned it, I reminded him of our little agreement that I wouldn’t tell the world that he really didn’t buy those gifts for the orphanage that particular Christmas and his good religious image would be shattered. Now I was happy to say I was the Pastor and Rita’s newest renter.

  Granted. He called me a blackmailer. I said it was just God’s way of helping me get my own place.

  “Pastor, if I didn’t think you were a good Christian man, I’d think you were ignoring me.” I always knew how to give a good dig to someone in his position.

  “Yes Laurel, what can I help you with?” Ahem, he cleared his throat and clasped his hands in front of him and rocked back on his heels.

  I looked up. The sun covered his face. He was a slender man. Always wore a suit that was either grey or black. And he stood six foot three. I came to his shoulders. He had thinning hair and a pointy nose.

  I took the money Morty had given me out of my hobo and handed it over to Pastor Wilson.

  “What’s this?” He looked perplexed.

  “I wanted to pay three months rent up front.” I smiled and turned around knowing he was shitting his pants. I walked back to the car.

  Every month I was a tad bit late on my rent and every month he would send Rita to collect from me. He was too chicken shit to face me. I guess I just haven’t gotten over the fact that he used orphans to create his own good guy image. What man of God did that?

  “Thank you, Laurel.” Pastor’s voice was unsure at first but escalated. “You sure are a good tenant.”

  I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it with my back turned. I had gotten his goat and he knew it just as much as I did. I put my hand in the air and waved over my shoulder. At least I wouldn’t be seeing him for three more months.

  I jumped back in the car and headed north on Main and turned on Second Street. Friendship Baptist’s parking lot was on the corner and next to that was the Walnut Grove Courthouse and next to that was the Walnut Grove Savings. Yes. The same bank I had gotten the money to pay for the pizza.

  Funny how Pastor Wilson owned the building and the apartment on top.

  “Home sweet home.” I pulled into the furthest spot in the bank parking lot—where I was told I could park. The rest were for the bank customers.

  I could hear Henrietta scratching at the door as I climbed the steel steps up to the efficiency.

  I unlocked the door and pushed my way in.

  “Hey girl.”

  Henrietta took off under the couch where I plopped down. “Momma has a new gig which means you won’t go hungry.”

  When I lost my job at Porty Morty’s, Henrietta and Trixie were the first two people I thought of. So Henrietta wasn’t a real person, but she was all I had.

  I pulled my hobo closer to me and looked inside for the cash from the muscled client from this morning.

  Carefully I counted each hundred like it was a piece of fine China. The cash Morty gave me was a three week paycheck.

  “One, two, three, four, five.” My eyes got bigger as the number went up. “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen,” my voice escalated, “two thousand dollars!”

  I jumped up off the couch, waving the money in the air.

  “Whoop whoop! How you doin’?” I asked the cash like it was going to answer. I started kissing the bills. “All for a little ride to and fro.”

  I reached for my bag to grab my phone to set the alarm for tomorrow morning to make sure I had plenty of time to pick up muscle man…money man when he told me to.

  “Damn.” I threw the purse back on the couch when I remembered my phone was gone. It looked like a little bit of this money was going to have to go toward a new phone. Oh well, hopefully he really would give me a little more cash when I picked him up in the morning.

  After counting the money one more time, Henrietta and I decided to watch a little TV before I had to get ready for bowling night.

  Gia, Carmine, Derek, the Fiddle twins and I were on a bowling team, Here For The Beer, at Lucky Strikes Lanes on the corner of Grove and Oak Streets. Gia claimed we needed another player since all the other teams had a round number of eight and asked Carmine’s best friend from Louisville, Antonio, to come down and play as a sit in.

  That’s what she told him.

  She told me that I was going to be set up on a date with him. If he was anything like Carmine, she could forget it.

  I opted to wear my skinny jeans with my white tee-shirt and sneakers. The bowling shoes were ancient ones and nothing I could wear would look good with them. To dress up the tee, I put on a big silver beaded necklace and matching bracelet along with my watch. I ran a brush through my hair and a couple of swipes of mascara to show off my grayish blue eyes. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I feel like I can see right through them because they look transparent when I wear mascara.

  Everyone always complimented me on my eyes, always asking which side of the family I got them from. Unfortunately I was never able to answer that question. I would smile and say thank you.

  Trixie always told me that I was beautiful but my actions made me ugly.

  It was a nice night. I gave Henrietta a can of food and grabbed my bag. I decided to walk the block over to Lucky Strikes. No sense in using up my gas. I tried to stay away from the Gas-N-Go as much as I could.

  Lucky Strikes’ large bowling pin sign flickered on and off with a buzzing sound. No matter where you were on Main Street, you could see the pin. Owners Bud and Sheila McKay said it was too expensive to fix all the neon lights. Everyone knew that Monday night was bowling night. Most of Walnut Grove was there.

  “Evening.” I smiled and pushed my way through the crowd to lane three.

  Normally I would grab a beer on my way over, but if I batted my eyes at Antonio maybe I’d get a free beer.

  The gang was all there plus two extras. One could only be Antonio because the other was Jax Jackson.

  “What are you doing here?” I tried to breathe normally as my heart sped up. Just looking at him made my heart race, something that had never happened to me before. Antonio sure wasn’t doing it for me.

  Antonio looked lik
e he had eaten a little too much pasta and forgot to exercise after. Not that dating a heavier guy was beneath me or anything, but he had to be able to go the distance in bed. Antonio didn’t look like he could go from here to the bar without breaking a sweat. There goes the free beer.

  “Beer?” Jax smiled while shoving a beer bottle in my face.

  “Be nice Laurel. He was sitting at the bar all by himself so I asked him to join us.” Gia was sitting on the orange plastic bench, bent over lacing up the generic bowling shoes.

  Something in my con artist gut told me something was fishy.

  I leaned over just enough to take the beer and just enough for Jax to hear me whisper, “It takes a con to know a con and you aren’t fooling me, Jax Jackson.” My heart was being fooled by him. Definitely being fooled. But my head wasn’t. I did the “I got my eyes on your gesture” with my fingers.

  The arrogant devil shot me a smile and winked. Immediately I went over to the ball rack where Gia was testing out every single bowling ball. It was the same crap every week. First she’d pick up a ball, put her fingers in it, hold it up to eye level and give it a good once over before she pretended to bowl with it. She did this to every single ball in the rack. And every single time she picked the purple one, size ten.

  “There is something going on with him,” I whispered in her ear as she was eyeing the blue ball with gold flecks all over it.

  “Who cares?” She did her pretend roll.

  “One of these days you are going to let go of that thing and it’ll go right through the display case.” I pointed to the glass case where there were shoes, gloves, balls, and Lucky Strike paraphernalia on sale. Bud was hunched over leaning on his elbows on the counter. He had a piece of straw sticking out of his bearded mouth. He looked so grizzly, you couldn’t see his lips. “Bud and Sheila will not like that.”

  “Why don’t you leave Jax Jackson well enough alone and go hang out with Antonio?” Gia got all sassy by snapping her finger in the air and rotating her neck like she had a crook in it.

  “Have you seen Antonio?” I asked.

  “So he’s gained a few.” Gia chomped her gum and looked over at Antonio. “Okay, a lot. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged and headed over to the shoe counter where Shelia was passing out the lovely accessory.

  “Good evening, Laurel. How have you been?” Sheila had on her skintight v-neck shirt with the bowling balls on it and her black leggings.

  “Good. I need a size eight please.” I smiled. “Your hair looks nice.”

  “Oh that.” She grinned and pushed her fingertips in the sides of her flaming red hair. “Yea, Bud doesn’t like it too good, but I do. Makes me a little frisky if you know what I mean.” She winked before she went to retrieve my size eights.

  What was it with the winking around here?

  “Unfortunately, I don’t know what you mean.” I gulped before I took the shoes. The idea of my feet going into something where thousands of feet have gone, kind of gave me the creeps every single time. I have to physically make my mind not think about it on bowling night. Sheila claims she cleans them real good. I’ve seen what she means by real good and it came in an aerosol can. Still not good enough for me. I carried a can of Lysol in my hobo just for instances like bowling night.

  “You mean that hot guy with the accent isn’t with you?” Sheila pointed her long lean finger with the red hot painted fake fingernail toward my group. “I heard you’ve been carting him around in a fancy new car before stopping at the Windmill to do God knows what.”

  “Oh my God!” I grabbed the ugly shoes out of Sheila’s other hand and marched back to the group, anger boiled my blood seeing Jax Jackson in one of our Here For The Beer tie-dyed shirts. It was all I needed to put me over the edge. “What is he doing in our shirt?”

  Steam rolled out of my ears.

  “Antonio, this is Laurel.” Gia ignored my question by smiling and turning toward Antonio.

  “Is this the babe that’s gonna sleep with me?” A snarky grin tipped his lips making my stomach curl. “I thought you said she was hot?” He turned to Carmine who shrugged.

  “Trust me,” I put very little distance between my nose and his, “I don’t need help finding a date and he sure wouldn’t smell like bologna like you do.”

  Alex Fiddle pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. He swallowed hard. “Man, why did you have to go and piss her off?”

  “Yea, don’t you know her history?” Adam Fiddle ran his hands through his short black hair. These days the twins were wearing their hair shorter on the sides and a little longer on the top with a side part. I had to say that it was working for them. The older they got, the cuter they got.

  The Fiddles were always a set of scrawny little guys. We, the orphan kids, always told them to steal some of their dad’s meat and eat.

  “Do you think I’d waste my time driving down here on that?” Antonio’s nose curled as he looked my body up and down. “I like a little more meat on my girl’s bones. You know?” He did a little air grinding, making my stomach curl at the thought. “Something to hold on to.”

  The guys chuckled.

  I inhaled deeply and stood up straight, shook my hair behind my head with my chin up in the air and grabbed the bottle of beer out of Jax’s hands, chugging down what he had left in it. Normally I wouldn’t have anything to do with back wash and drinking after strangers, but there wasn’t anything normal about this situation.

  “Let’s get this game going.” I tossed the bottle in the trash. I pointed directly at Jax. “Get me another one.”

  The group dropped to silent, barely breathing. I grabbed the Lysol can out of my bag and sprayed the insides of the shoes. I threw the can to Gia before I gripped my bowling ball. I took a couple of steps forward toward the lane. I cupped my wrist and quickly opened it at the top of my swing. I used the old plant and pull method for more leverage on the ball because the speed and power helped me get out my frustration.

  Slowly I turned around and walked back toward the team with my ears on full alert. I knew it was a great bowl and a strike was in my foreseeable future. The whiz of the ball struck the pins, knocking all of them down.

  “Damn.” Jax leaned to the right to look over my shoulder at the strike. He leaned back staring at me—his mouth open.

  I walked right past him and grabbed the beer he had gotten me.

  “Close your mouth.” I heard Gia say to him. “She’s a cranker.” Gia referred to the delivery style I had chosen to do.

  “She’s something,” Jax said in a little sarcastic tone. “I never bowl. I’m terrible.”

  Derek walked up. He surveyed the group and did a head nod Carmine’s way who head nodded back. Some sort of guy talk was going on because the two of them shrugged.

  Derek was always late on Monday night because after lunch he had to drive to class and would make it just in time for him to be the last bowler on the team, in the first round.

  It was apparent he felt the same way I did about Jax. Derek plopped down in the plastic seat next to me and dropped his shoes making us all look after they smacked down on the old tile floor.

  “What’s he doing here?” Derek asked in a hushed whisper. He didn’t look at me. He took off his shoes and slipped the bowling shoes on.

  “How do you know him?” I asked back when Jax was out of earshot. He was next to bowl.

  I couldn’t help but smile when he crossed the foul line and the alarm sounded throughout Lucky Strikes. All the other teams looked and started to jab each other in pleasure. Everyone wanted to beat Here For The Beer, especially since all the other teams were members of the local AARP.

  “Trixie called and told me you were prostituting. Then she called back because she said you weren’t prostituting. Then I grabbed a BLT to go from The Cracked Egg on my way to class and Gia happened to mention you were in there with some stranger that you conned into thinking your car was a taxi.” He clenched his jaws. There was no forgiven
ess in his eyes. “What happened to Quick Copy? I thought you were trying to be on the level when I gave you that car.”

  “I am.” Damn, Gia. Her loose lip always got me in trouble.

  I snuck a peek over at her. Her face was flush. It was apparent she knew he was reading me my Miranda Rights about my apparent bad decision of picking up a stranger and how I could have been killed, left for dead, and not found in years.

  In the background, I took pleasure when I saw Jax had a split in order to get a spare. Newbie.

  “He is the one who needed a ride and I wasn’t going to do it for free since I have no job. Gas is expensive and I swear that Baxter Thacker is charging me more than other customers.” I jabbed his bicep. “That is who you need to investigate first when you get your badge, or whatever it is that you get. Highway robbery I tell you!”

  I had to get the heat off me.

  Ugh. I inwardly groaned when I saw Jax’s ball spin and whirl, hitting the ten pin and whipping it to the other side, knocking down the seven pin.

  “Oh! I’m next.” I shrugged and jumped up avoiding any more scolding from Derek.

  Along the way I passed Jax who was strutting back to the group because of his little fake “I’m not a good bowler” act.

  “Lucky bowl I guess.” He shrugged. He smiled when I glared at him. The power of his gaze sent my heart into a twirly whirl—like those little helicopters that fell from trees. I swallowed hard. “Get another strike,” he said.

  “She will.” Derek stood up. His legs were planted in a cop stance. His arms crossed.

  Jax stopped. I bit my lip and didn’t look back at them. Derek was going to have my back no matter what. I bet he was using his cop instincts to detect Jax Jackson’s shit, just like I had.

  Yep…Derek and I were cut from the same cloth, which was going to make him a great cop.

  As the evening progressed the night got a little better. Antonio left when he figured out I wasn’t going to do him any favors. I told Carmine and Gia to butt out of my love life. Henrietta was all I needed.

  “Who’s the hottie mctotty?” Norma Allen, the cranker for the Holy Rollers, was eyeing Jax up and down.