Tucker

by Dale Mayer

  “What’s going on? Who shot at us?”

  “Well, the cops caught our gunman, and they didn’t search him but ordered him to the ground. He managed to roll and fire on several of them.”

  “Did he hurt anybody?”

  “No, but he took two bullets, one in the shoulder, one in the arm,” he said. “They’ll take him to the hospital, get him patched up, and charge him.”

  “And it’s the guy who hurt you?”

  “Well, I can’t be sure about that. Hopefully we’ll find that out during their investigation. I was really afraid they’d kill him, and we’d get no answers,” he said. “But then I had Bernie here sniff out his vehicle. We found a whole lot more than we expected.”

  “What?” she asked, anxiously looking at him.

  He turned, stared at her, his face grim. “A body in the trunk.”

  She gasped, the color fading from her cheeks. “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Not exactly sure what’s going on, but that’s why he was fighting to get out of there.”

  “Damn,” she said. “It’s one thing to get caught on the suspicion of an attack, kidnapping, plus the arson, but it’s a completely different thing to get caught with a body in your vehicle.”

  “Well, he can sprout all kinds of denials, but it’ll be hard to get out of this one,” he said.

  “Do we know who it is?”

  “I took a picture of the man’s face for Rodney to identify. He said it was Raul, this guy is Rural’s partner, on the painting crew.”

  “Great,” she said, “so it’s likely all related.”

  “Yes, we think so.”

  “But is Rural talking yet?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “But I think, for the moment, this is over with.”

  “Well, I hope so. How many other people can hate us so much?”

  He laughed at that, started up the truck. As the traffic moved, Tucker pulled back into the line, and the traffic was free to go now that the roadblock was removed. Tucker waved and honked at the detective, as he stood there on the side of the road. Tucker pulled to the shoulder again. The detective walked over, and Tucker mentioned that Rodney had identified the dead man for them.

  “Right, and the prisoner’s talking already,” he said. “He didn’t want to kill his buddy, but his buddy had put them in a terrible position because he’d accepted money to burn down the property. And, once the dog got there, the guy got afraid that the dog would know something, and then he would get charged, so he wanted to take you out.”

  “Great, so the two buddies, Rural and Raul, knocked me out and carried me into the woods? Then Rural killed Raul, leaving me behind? I guess I should be thankful for that. And then today Rural worried about evidence, returned to the crime scene, and shot at us?”

  “It was an argument that got out of control. Anyway, that’s the gist of the story at the moment.”

  “And it makes sense,” Tucker said. “It’d be nice if we could tie up the arson and the attack at the same time. I just wonder how the hell they knew we would be there this morning.”

  “Not sure that he knew you would be there at all. But he was looking to see if his buddy had left any evidence at the scene that would incriminate him. When he saw you, he didn’t know what to do but tried to go after you as well.”

  “Wow, he’s just losing on all corners.”

  “Well, now he’s injured, and he’ll go to jail for a long time,” he said. “You know a lot of charges are coming up for him, including firing on several police officers, but the murder charge will trump the lot.”

  “I don’t care what trumps what as long as it’s over,” he said.

  “You and me both. You and me both.” He smacked the driver’s side of the truck, where Addie sat now, and said, “Get ready for that wedding now.”

  “Right, Rodney will be beside himself if I’m late.” Tucker waved and jumped into truck’s passenger seat.

  “It’s just the rehearsal, isn’t it?” she asked, as she drove.

  “Yes, as far as I know,” he said. “I don’t even know why we need a rehearsal if it’s a small wedding.”

  “Maybe they’ll make it for real instead of a rehearsal,” she said.

  “I don’t know. I think you need a minister for that.”

  “Maybe. You’d think after all this time that they would just take the chance and get it done.”

  They made it back to his hotel, and he quickly checked out. He got the rest of his stuff, threw it all into the back of the truck. They stopped at her place, where they could get showered and changed, with him in a suit and her in a sundress and sandals. By now it was midafternoon, and they headed to where the wedding rehearsal would be. It was a small church with a large park outside.

  Rodney stood there nervously in a black suit too. “I don’t know why we have to rehearse,” he said, “I’m already terrified she won’t show up as it is.”

  “She needs to,” Tucker said. “This is a lot of stress on everybody.”

  “Did you have any thoughts about maybe instead of a rehearsal just getting married now?” Addie asked.

  Rodney looked at her a moment, and then a slow smile dawned. “You know what? I like that idea. She’s been trying to get out of this for a long time. When she finally agreed, she went through all kinds of panic about it.”

  “Well, if she knows this is only a rehearsal,” Addie said, “she should be here today, but maybe you want to make it real instead of a rehearsal. Take the stress right out of it for her tomorrow.”

  Rodney laughed. “She might hate me for it too.”

  “It’s hard to say,” Tucker said. As they stood here, another vehicle drove up, and, sure enough, it was his sister. She hopped out, not in her wedding dress but a beautiful dress anyway. Seeing him, she ran forward to give him a great big hug. “You almost died,” she said, “again.”

  “So can we finally get you married?” Tucker said. “Just in case I don’t make the next attempt.”

  She gasped at him, and tears came to her eyes.

  He groaned, pulled her into his arms, and said, “Sorry, that was a bad joke.”

  “It was a terrible joke,” she cried out. “Why would you even say something like that? And today of all days.”

  “Because you’ve been giving Rodney hell about actually getting married,” he scolded. “Come on. Let’s get this done.”

  “It’s not supposed to be something that we just get done,” she said. “It’s supposed to be something that’s revered, that’s honored.”

  “Do you honor him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Of course I do,” she said in exasperation.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Silence fell everywhere around them.

  Tucker didn’t know how to make it any simpler than that, but sometimes his sister just needed straight-talking to.

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, and she leaned in closer and whispered into his ear, “I’m pregnant.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, I’m delighted to hear that, but maybe you should be telling Rodney.”

  She nodded slowly. “I just didn’t want the wedding to happen because of this.”

  He rolled his eyes, turned to Rodney, and said, “Well, I’m hardly the person to break this to you,” he said, “but it does explain some of the behavior that you’ve been dealing with for the last few days.”

  Rodney looked at him, then looked at his soon-to-be-wife in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  Addie understood. “Oh, my gosh,” Addie said. “Congratulations.”

  Molly looked at Addie and smiled. “You must be Addie,” she said.

  “Yes, I am.” Addie walked over and gave her a big hug, and then she walked to Rodney and said, “Congrats.”

  He looked at her in confusion and looked at Molly. “What is she congratulating me for?”

  “You’ll be a dad,” Tucker said blunt
ly. “And that’s why there has been emotional hysteria.”

  Rodney stared at Tucker for a long moment, his face blank, and then he looked at Molly. “Seriously?”

  She nodded slowly. “And I started to panic.”

  He opened his arms, wrapped her up tight in a big hug, and said, “How could you possibly panic about us getting married?”

  “Because I figured that, if you found out,” she said, “then you would marry me just because I was pregnant.”

  He looked at her in confusion. “So you were trying to keep it a secret?”

  “Then I felt guilty,” she said. “So I’ve been torn as to what to do.”

  “Obviously you always tell me the truth,” he said, “and then you’ll get your pregnant ass in that church, and you’ll marry me. I’ve been trying to marry you for a decade. Now this just makes me even more determined.”

  She burst out laughing. “I didn’t know how you’d react.”

  “Well, you could have tried telling me and finding out,” he roared. “I’ve had hell for a couple days now. But this is the best news you could possibly have given me.”

  “But what if I wasn’t pregnant?”

  He looked at her, shook his head, and said, “Don’t even start. Now this is supposed to be a rehearsal, but they suggested that we skip the rehearsal part and just get married.”

  She looked up at them all in delight. “Is that possible?”

  “Why don’t we find out?” Tucker said. “At least we could get one thing accomplished today.”

  “Something I’ve been trying to get accomplished for a very long time,” Rodney said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t want to go through this anymore.”

  At that, the church doors opened, and the minister said that they were welcome to come in. Rodney walked in and took a few steps with him and had a quiet conversation.

  Addie looked over at Molly. “Are you okay to get married today? You’re not in your wedding dress.”

  “Honestly it doesn’t fit,” she said in a dull whisper. “I was still panicking over what I was supposed to wear.” She shrugged. “I guess I overreacted.”

  “You never really wanted to be a mom,” Tucker said cautiously.

  “I didn’t before,” she nodded. “And then I did, and then I figured that I was too old, and it wouldn’t happen, and Rodney didn’t want any, and I just went down a rabbit hole.”

  “Wow,” Addie said in fascination. “I guess talking to him wasn’t an option?”

  “Yet he’s the easiest person to talk to,” Molly confessed. “I’m just an idiot.”

  At that, Addie burst out laughing. “No. You are not an idiot,” she said. “You are pregnant, and it’s your wedding day.”

  At that, Rodney came bouncing back with a big smile on his face. “We can do it right now,” he said. “We have witnesses, and, other than that, we can just go and get this done. I’m not sure what to do about tomorrow, but we’ll figure it out.” He stopped, looked at Molly, and said, “Unless you’ve got other plans?”

  “The only plans I have right now,” she said in relief, “is to get married.”

  Rodney frowned. “We don’t have any flowers, and then there’s your dress.”

  “I know,” she said, “so there might be a big bill for all that.”

  “Well, we didn’t have very many ordered anyway, did we?”

  “No, the expensive part is my dress.”

  “Right,” he said, then straightened, took a deep breath, and offered, “You want to go home and get changed?”

  Molly looked at Addie, then at her husband-to-be, and shook her head. “I was just telling Addie that my dress doesn’t fit, and I was starting to panic as to what to do.”

  Rodney smiled and then started to chuckle. “Honest to God,” he said, “I’m just so damn glad that this will happen right now. As long as you’re happy, please let’s go in and get married.”

  She reached up a hand and held it to his cheek and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’ve always loved you, and now I have even more reason to get married.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  “No, of course not,” he said.

  “We didn’t talk about it though. Having kids.”

  “We did early on, yes,” he said. “Then it became one those things that I just figured you didn’t want to have a family. Or at least not now.”

  “All of the above,” she said. “Then I found out I was pregnant.” Her hand went immediately and possessively to her belly. “And then I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  “Good,” he said, “because honestly that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  “Perfect,” she said. “Do you have the rings?”

  He pulled them from his pocket and said, “Yes.” Rodney held out his hand to Molly and said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  When Molly accepted Rodney’s hand, Tucker smiled and turned to Addie. “Then let’s go.” He reached out a hand to Addie and led her behind the wedding couple into the church.

  And together Rodney and Molly walked in through the door, with Addie and Tucker behind them. He left the dog on her leash, secured to the truck’s bumper for the short ceremony. The minister performed a simple yet sweetly moving ceremony, sealing their vows with a kiss, and, by the time it was done, everybody was incredibly thankful. Molly threw her arms around Rodney, kissed him wholeheartedly, and then turned to her brother, wrapped her arms around him, and just held him close.

  “You see?” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Why did I make it such a big deal?”

  “Because it was to be special, and, as always, you wanted it perfect.”

  “Well, I feel like a perfect fool,” she admitted.

  “Well, that’s one form of perfect too,” he said, laughing.

  She grinned. “I’m really glad you’re here. It’s not the way I thought it would turn out, but honestly it’s still probably the best way.”

  Rodney wrapped an arm around her shoulder, tucked her up close, and murmured, “Absolutely it is. We weren’t having a big reception anyway,” he said. “So I guess what we’ll do is still keep the reception tomorrow?”

  She nodded. “That’s a good idea, and everybody will come for that part to celebrate with us.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “We could announce that here and take care of that right now.”

  She nodded and smiled. “The reception was supposed to be at the hotel anyway, with a simple wedding beforehand.”

  “Well, the ceremony done now would mean the minister doesn’t have to show up tomorrow, so that’s a given,” Rodney said. “I spoke to him about that, and he was fine with it.” Rodney frowned. “I suggest the flowers come to the reception maybe a little earlier instead of the church, and then we won’t have to worry about those either.”

  Molly nodded, all smiles.

  Tucker felt something settle inside. A side glance at Addie showed the tears sparkling in the corner of her eyes. Something was so poignant about the way this wedding happened; … obviously it touched her as well. He squeezed her fingers. She immediately sniffed back tears but smiled at him, as she squeezed his fingers in return.

  “You okay?” he murmured, watching his sister and Rodney accept well-wishes from all.

  “Never better.”

  Chapter 12

  After the ceremony the newlywed couple hugged their guests; then everyone headed to their vehicles to make the trip to Saint Pete’s Beach hotel for the slated rehearsal dinner. Addie and Tucker took a moment to walk Bernie to a nearby grassy spot. The guests finally all arrived at the hotel for a nice semiformal dinner that night, where, again, Tucker tied Bernie’s leash to a nearby bike rack on a grassy corner nearby. Since all the stress evaporated when the wedding plans had changed, everybody was much more relaxed, so it ended up being hugely enjoyable, even some of the guests going outside to interact with Bernie.

  Addie got to know Molly quite well over their
conversations. Having met Rodney several times, Addie had already formed a relationship there and that was much easier for them all. Turning to Molly, Addie asked, “Did you make all the phone calls to cancel what wasn’t needed tomorrow?”

  “I did,” she said. “And it feels honestly much better, like I haven’t been shackled.”

  “I’m surprised you were that much against marriage.”

  “I had a previous boyfriend,” she said. “He hounded me and hounded me to get married, and every day that it got closer and closer to signing the deal, I got more and more panicky. Finally I told him the day before the wedding that I couldn’t do it.”

  Addie winced. “I can imagine he was disappointed.”

  “Yes,” Molly said with feeling.

  “How bad was it?”

  “I ended up in the hospital,” she admitted. “It’s one of the reasons why Rodney has never pushed me, and I appreciate that so much. But it did end up making me very resistant to the whole idea.”

  “Of course,” Addie said. “I’m so sorry you went through that. It’s tough to see the wrong side of humanity, isn’t it?”

  “It is, indeed.” Molly beamed at her. “You’re really good for him,” she said. “Tucker seems to be much more lighthearted.”

  “It’s been a pretty rough few days,” Addie said guiltily. “I also don’t know what he was like before this.”

  “I heard about what happened. Plus I understand that you helped him free the dog that he came to help. So now, I suppose, he’ll go home after the weekend.”

  “Oh,” Addie said, suddenly depressed at the thought.

  “You’re not ready for that, are you?” Molly exclaimed in delight. “Oh, I’m so happy you two have a connection.”

  Addie sighed. “No, I’m not ready for him to leave. He’s very special,” she said, lowering her voice. “I didn’t expect to meet anybody in this scenario, but I obviously have, and now I have to deal with the consequences that he doesn’t live close by.”

  “Are you tied to Miami?”

  “Lord no,” she admitted, “and I’d do a lot to head to a less-populated area of civilization. You know? Like an acre in the woods, five minutes out of town, would suit me.”