Hot Enough to Kill

by Paula Boyd

  I was wishing--real hard--for one of those surgical drape things that only has the part you need to see cut out, and the part you wished never had to see covered up. "Like it or not, Leroy, and I promise you I don't," I muttered, "I'm gonna have to follow this scratch down and see how bad it is. You hang on to the left side of your trousers and I'll sneak a peek."

  In theory, it was a good idea, but the actual execution left a lot to be desired. I got to see way more of Leroy Harper than any human should ever have to. "Lucky you," I said. "It's a cut. Pretty bad one, even, but not a puncture wound. I was sure afraid you'd fallen right on top of a spine. Stay right here and don't move. I'll go find something to put on the wound."

  I scurried to the other room and grabbed all the medical supplies on the shelf, which means I got a hydrogen peroxide--I would have preferred alcohol or some other stinging product--and a box of bandages.

  Walking back into the bait room, I heard my mother say, "You know, Leroy, with that big old butt of yours, you could have a right nice bulldog tattoo. I mean the kind with the big old jowls that sort of snarls when you move just right. Or, one of those pretty ladies with the big boobs, whatever suited your fancy. Plenty of room to work back there, you could have you a real nice picture of something."

  I cleared my throat and it was not trivial gesture. I was trying not to throw up. And no, I did not want to know when, how or why my mother had developed her interest in tattoos. I walked on in like I hadn't heard a single nauseating word. "This won't take but a minute, Leroy. Later, you might want to get some antibiotic cream and put on it, but you should be just fine."

  I set about my work, trying to keep my mind on the task rather than the territory. On the positive side, his clothes were drying up pretty quickly. Other than being almost finished with the patch job, it was the only other positive thing I could think of. "So, Leroy, just how much trouble are we in?"

  "You're both in big trouble, Jolene. More now," he said, wincing as I smacked a bandage in place just a little harder than I should have. "What you two done is serious. Real serious."

  That was no great news flash. Unlike Leroy, I could spell both felony and jail time. But since doing so didn't sound like much fun, all we had to do was keep Leroy from telling on us. "Well, Leroy, if you look at it from my point of view, we didn't know that you weren't involved with whoever is trying to kill us, therefore, self-defense comes in to play, and all that. And, most importantly, you don’t want anybody knowing about any of this anymore than we do."

  He cocked his head around to look over his shoulder at me as he mulled over the how the self-defense thing might play out, or more likely, how he was going to get himself out of this mess without looking stupid in front of his department and the whole county. "You ain't suppose to have to defend yourself from the sheriff," he said. "Everybody knows that."

  Ah, he was waffling. "That's usually true, Leroy, but in this case we thought the sheriff was the bad guy. Look at what all had happened? How were we to know you weren't?"

  As he frowned and scowled to assist his thinking, I slapped on another bandage and did some thinking of my own. Whatever had been going on behind the scenes, I couldn't guess, but one thing was very clear: Jerry cared. I got a little warm fuzzy feeling, but it faded pretty fast when I realized that while he had cared enough to try to keep us safe, he was also back with his ex-wife. Couldn't go there right now or I'd be a puddle, so I focused back on Leroy. He really was to blame for some of the confusion, maybe most of it. I stuck on the last bandage. "Seriously, Leroy, this is really just a silly misunderstanding. If you'd been honest about what you were doing and why, we wouldn't have run like rabbits."

  "And shot up my car."

  Yeah, there was that. "We're just lucky it didn't turn out worse than it did--or both of us."

  He grumbled, but I could tell he was beginning to see the merit in my arguments. With the patch job finished, He pulled up his pants, zippered and buckled then turned toward us. "That woman," he said, pointing at Lucille, "has hit me in the head with her purse more times than I can remember, and she's shot at me. That's a little more than a misunderstanding."

  Lucille shook her head and tsk-tsked him like he was a two-year-old. "Now, Leroy, you shot at me first, remember? How's that going to look in a your report?"

  Leroy frowned. "I was just trying to get your attention. You were really trying to shoot me."

  "No, I just wanted you to back off and leave us alone. I was just trying to get your attention just like you said you were trying to get ours. I believe, under the circumstances, it was a sound plan."

  I didn't believe it was too sound, but Leroy the not-so-bright was thinking it over--or thinking over how the story would sound when he told it to Jerry. In my opinion, none of it pointed to brilliance of anyone involved, and I wasn't too excited about having to confess my role in the farce. I was debating how to make my actions sound perfectly plausible when I heard something in the other room.

  The entry door at the front of the store creaked open then banged closed. Either somebody needed some bait awfully bad or Bud had returned.

  I glanced toward the front room, but I couldn't see anyone for the rows of overpriced canned goods.

  "Somebody's coming," Leroy whispered then glanced at Lucille. "Give me my gun back."

  "Are you going to arrest us?" I said, sounding suspiciously like a blackmailer.

  "In all the years I've known you, Jolene," he said, still rubbing his bandaged bottom, "you never ever been nice to me."

  Geez, I'd just doctored his butt, how much nicer could I be? "Okay, Leroy, I'm sorry. I guess it's just part of my nature, but I'm trying to do better. From here on out, I promise to be a complete angel to you. Swear."

  Personally, I couldn't hear a single tonality that remotely resembled honesty, but Leroy was nodding thoughtfully. He hitched up his pants and puffed out his chest. "I am feeling better."

  I smiled, hoping he'd forget that he wouldn't have been feeling bad at all if my mother hadn't knocked him into the fish tank. I did not ask how his head felt.

  "Give me my gun," he said again. Lucille did and he holstered it right up. "But one more misstep out of either of you and the deal's off." He turned toward the front room. "I'll go talk to Bud."

  I grinned, widely, not even realizing we'd made a deal. Mother and I were getting off the hook, so to speak, and things were looking up, cheery even. Why, it was almost worth having to doctor Leroy's butt.

  Chapter 19

  I stepped toward Lucille. "I think I'll go up front and have a word with Bud myself," I said, thinking about how he'd cut the taxi deal then fled. "What is it with these people?"

  "Oh, my Lord!" Lucille said, eyes wide.

  I followed her gaze and saw Leroy walking back into the bait room, holding his hands high in the air--and he was not preparing to give me a double high-five. Dewayne Schuman stood behind him with a rifle muzzle pressed against his back.

  Leroy's eyes blinked rapidly and he looked a little green around the gills. Under the circumstances, I couldn't blame him. Dewayne prodded him along with the gun, backing Leroy up against the catfish tank. The acting sheriff looked as worried about the fish as the gun.

  "Sorry about this, Leroy," Dewayne said rather congenially. "But them two took my money and I aim to get it back. BigJohn owed it to me. We had a deal." He scowled for a minute then added, "It's my money and I want it. I’m getting out of here and making a clean start. I give him an invoice just before he got killed and he never paid me. I know you got the money and I want it."

  "You should have waited for him to pay you before you killed him," I said, watching his face to see how he'd react to that accusation this time around. No, it didn't make sense, but neither did anything else. "Would have made things a lot easier."

  Dewayne scratched his gorilla head with his free hand. "I done told you I didn't kill BigJohn. We were partners. I was making good money. Why would I want to mess that up?"

  Yes, well, he
wouldn't. Dewayne wasn't our killer any more than Leroy was, and neither of them had a clue about anything. "Okay, fine. If I give you your stash of illegal money--and we all know it is--you'll go away and leave us all alone, yes?"

  Dewayne bobbed his big head enthusiastically. "Would've left you alone earlier if you and your mother there hadn't been so pushy. I thought about what to do for a long time. I didn't want to cause trouble, but I'm already in a pot load of it anyway. I was heading back out to the cabin when I saw your car here. I just gotta have that money."

  "Should have shot you when I had the chance," Lucille muttered, her hand slipping over toward her purse. "And I want to know why Giff was chasing you around the lake out by my cabin."

  "Gifford? Never saw him today." He watched Mother as if he were going to say something, probably "give me that Glock that you've got in that purse," or something to that effect. He also hadn't asked for Leroy's gun. Only a minor oversight I feared; Mother was the one he needed to watch. Apparently, he was remembering that as well.

  Before his thoughts gelled too much, I decided to get him thinking of other things. "Did you know Gifford Geller was here when we rolled in, and I do mean rolled in since you slit all four tires?"

  He turned back toward me--and away from Mother. "What?"

  "Giff said he'd been trying to catch up with you, followed you around the lake for a while."

  "Well, I durn sure never saw him." Ape-man shook his scraggly head. "And I didn't touch your car, woman. I got better things to do than fool with your tires. You and that mother of yours get the craziest ideas."

  The thought turned his attention back to Mother, and I figured he was about one thought away from remembering what it was he should be watching Lucille for. "All right, fine. I'll get the money," I said. "Let's go out to my car. You can leave from there. Go to Mexico, go to France, I don't care, but leave us alone."

  He nodded and motioned me toward the front room with the tip of his rifle.

  As I marched past Leroy toward my mother, that familiar sick feeling swooped down upon me once again. Lucille was digging in her purse. I didn't know whether to tell her to sit still, keep walking or prepare for the worst. Knowing my mother as I have come to, I prepared for the worst. And the worst that I could think of was that she'd try to shoot Dewayne, and thus me in the process. Or else we'd just have an old-fashioned Wild West shootout.

  Right on cue, I caught a flash of red from the corner of my eye. A little glowing dot began to dance around on the front of Dewayne's shirt then work its way down his arm. Laser sight. Gun. Shit.

  Without really thinking, I jumped away from Dewayne and back toward Leroy, ramming my shoulder into him, sending us both sprawling across the floor.

  Dewayne swung around toward us. A gunshot boomed. Dewayne screamed. Something clattered on the floor.

  "Oh, my," said my mother, completely unflustered and innocence oozing from her lips. "I didn't realize this little thing was loaded."

  Like hell, I thought, scrambling across the floor for Dewayne's gun. I nabbed the rifle while Leroy lumbered to his feet, pulling his own recently returned weapon. It wasn't really necessary, considering Mother and I both had guns pointed at Dewayne, who was rolling around on the floor, clutching his hand and shrieking. I turned to Mother. "Were those hollow points?"

  "Oh, no," she said, wiping down the gun with the corner of her blouse. "I just used regular loads. I felt bad about doing too much damage to the big old dumbbell. Those hollow points would have just exploded his hand. This way, he's only got a hole. I do expect I hit a few bones though."

  I shoved Dewayne's rifle under the fish trough and glanced at Leroy, who was holstering his own gun. He stood over Dewayne, staring down like he didn't really know what he should do, or either he was in shock himself.

  "Go call for an ambulance, Leroy," I said, looking around for a towel or something to wrap around Dewayne's hand.

  Leroy didn't move, so I figured I'd just get Dewayne situated and handle the job myself. I quizzed Dewayne about this, that and nothing just to keep him occupied while Mother took a towel she'd found somewhere and wrapped it around his hand. We managed to get him to stop wallowing around long enough to use his other hand to keep the towel in place.

  "Now, you just keep pressure on it and you'll be just fine," Lucille said, standing and walking back toward her chair and purse.

  I was proud that my mother was handling things so efficiently because I was still shaking like aspen trees in an autumn wind. I just hoped I didn't look as scared as I felt. "Leroy's going to go call the ambulance now, Dewayne," I said, standing. "I'll help him."

  The distinctive metal click of a gun being readied to fire echoed across the bait room.

  Instinctively, my head snapped toward my mother. She was back in her chair, but she didn't have anything in her hands, specifically her Little Lady. So if she didn't have the Glock out again, and Leroy was just standing there like a tree, then who had cocked a gun?

  A loud thundering boom answered my thought. Dewayne Schuman jerked convulsively at my feet. Then I saw a gaping hole in his chest, which was slowly pooling with blood. "Oh, God."

  My gaze darted around the room.

  Lucille had spun around at the sound of the gun and was staring toward the front room, her back to the wall. Leroy's head had jerked up, his eyes locked in the same general direction as Mother's. I followed their frozen gazes and turned to stone where I stood.

  In the doorway between the rooms was a dark-haired woman, pointing a huge handgun down at Dewayne. Susan Schuman Miller had just murdered her own brother.

  "Stupid son of a bitch." She raised the gun, pointed it at me and laughed. "You had no idea."

  No, hell no. I had no idea about anything, especially now.

  "He was the worst one of them all. My own brother."

  What was she talking about? A hundred questions zinged through my head, but not a word came to my quivering lips. I was sucking in little gasps of air and my whole body shaking, but damned if I could control either. This was it. The end. Adios.

  Susan laughed. "Cat got your tongue, Jolene? A little surprised at this turn of events, I suppose." She turned toward Leroy. "Give me your gun, asshole."

  Leroy did not move, only stared, eyes wide and face pale.

  Susan sighed heavily and theatrically. "All right, let's try it again. Slide your right hand down to your hip, you stupid prick, lift up the hand grip on the gun in the holster and give the gun to me," she said, as if instructing an imbecile. "Twitch wrong, and you're dead."

  Leroy looked dazed, but he did as she asked, floundering every now and then, but eventually he managed to hand Susan his pistol.

  Susan stuffed Leroy's gun into the waistband of her jeans. "I was kind of hoping you'd screw up, not that I need a reason to shoot you. But, I'd also like to take my time and enjoy killing you."

  Leroy's eyelids fluttered in a fast blink, but he still looked shell-shocked and was probably not going to be of much help, not that there was much he could do now anyway. What could any of us do?

  I was trying to get my own petrified brain to function for a half a minute so I could think of exactly what was going on here. I had to keep my eyes on Susan and not on the floor. I had to not think about Dewayne or the blood spreading out from his body in thick pools. And I had to not stand here like an unmoving target. I had to do something.

  Susan had shot her brother as if he were a snake in the grass, so we were all just one bullet away from being dead as well. Instantly, life became a highly precious commodity, and I started grasping for a straw that might preserve ours--even temporarily. Something clever would be nice. Panic did not spur my creative juices and the best I could think of was that sometimes killers liked to gloat about what they'd done.

  "It's all starting to make sense now," I said, although it wasn't at all. "You were the brains behind the--"

  "Everything, sweetcakes," Susan said proudly. "I'm the brains behind everything. The whole town lik
ed to pretend I was invisible, which made it all the easier. I didn't waste too much time dabbling in politics, but I did like making little suggestions to the less brilliant types who thought they were in charge. Dumb arrogant assholes."

  "Made them think they were having real ideas for themselves. They felt smart and I got what I wanted." She laughed, a very evil and unfunny laugh as she looked right at me. "People are so easy to manipulate."

  The chilling laugh shuddered through me. This woman had jumped off the deep edge long ago. Worse, she was proud of it. I had to do something, but what?

  Susan kicked a foot out at Dewayne and wiggled his shoulder with her tennis shoe. "Of course, some of them are just too stupid to do what they're told, so here I am again, having to take care of things myself."

  What did she mean by that? Had she also told her own brother to hang himself? Oh, God, this whole thing was something I would never have imagined--and couldn't even begin to piece together now. I hadn't really thought much about Susan in the whole scheme of things, except to feel sorry for her. Great judge of character I am. Well, I could either berate myself until she killed me, or I could do something. Keeping her talking seemed a good option, so I grabbed the first thought that whizzed by. "That was really clever of you to throw everybody off the track by pretending to be at odds with the mayor."

  "Who was pretending? The bastard was out to get us--and the money. Stupid Dewayne just couldn't seem to grasp that concept. Bennett was ignorant, arrogant and greedy, but I guess we see who came out on that deal."

  I guess we did. The pieces were falling into place. "So why shoot Jerry?" I asked, knowing the answer before she said a word.

  "Amy, of course."

  "Get rid of the competition?"

  She laughed, a wholly evil laugh. "Something like that. He thinks he's perfect, Amy thinks he's perfect, hell, even you think he's perfect, but he's not. And he's surely not invincible, I proved that quite well." She chuckled again and then shrugged. "Oh, I guess if you really must know it was mostly just convenient. BigJohn had stirred up so much trouble that it was only a matter of time until Jerry got wise to the whole deal. He was supposed to be my second shot. The first was for Granny." She nodded toward Lucille. "I suspected she had the money, even if she didn't know it, and I couldn't very well find it with deputies crawling all over the place. I needed her gone."