Digging For Trouble

by K. J. Emrick

  “Again?” She’d just added two days on, no doubt so she could stay in town and see what was happening with Arthur, so why...? No. Best not to spook her. If she wanted to stay, then I’d help her stay. “Right. For how long?”

  “Shall we say, a week?”

  Wow. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Just have to go downstairs to check the registration slips so I can see where I have rooms. Can I do that later and ring your room to let you know?”

  Her expression shifted.

  “Right,” I said, trying to be cheerful. “Now would be better. Come on down with me, then.”

  So, back down the stairs we went. We were at the bottom when I remembered the phone call. Checking the display, I saw the number that had called me. Lakeshore PD. It was Kevin’s call I’d missed.

  I really should call him back. He might have information about Arthur’s daughter, who I still suspected was Denice Aldrich. Although, with Denice standing right here with me it was going to be pretty hard for me and Kevin to carry on a conversation about her.

  Indecision weighed on me until the phone dinged once to let me know I had a voicemail. Brilliant. Leading Denice to the front of the registration counter I went around to the back and turned the computer back on. At the same time I tapped the speed dial for my voicemail and put the phone up to my ear.

  “Please enter your password,” the annoying pre-recorded voice told me.

  “So, let’s see here,” I said out loud, running one hand up the computer screen where the list of rented rooms was displayed, and tapping the four digit code for my voicemail into my cell.

  “Take your time,” Denice said, adjusting the lapel on her jacket. The brooch flashed in the light.

  “That’s pretty,” I said to her, trying to keep her occupied while I multitasked on my side.

  “You have one new message.”

  I took a closer look at the pin.

  “First new message.”

  The brooch was black, in the shape of a bird in flight.

  Not just a bird.

  “Mom,” I heard Kevin’s voice on the message.

  A blackbird.

  Raven. Beware the raven.

  “Mom, I checked on this Denice woman. You need to get out of the Inn. Now. I don’t have time to explain. She’s not who she says she is. Get out of there now. I’m on my way but don’t wait for me. Just get out!”

  My fingers reached up slowly to the unicorn necklace as I set my mobile down on the registration counter. Next to where I’d left the receiver from the desk phone. “Wrong number.”

  Like a striking snake Denice’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

  “You,” she said to me, “are a horrible liar.”

  She yanked me forward, closer to her, and I got a better look at the broach, the bird, with its black wings spread wide and the tiny black gems of its eyes sparkling. Beware the raven, the voice on the phone had said. Now, a little too late, I knew what it had meant.

  Stay away from Denice Aldrich.

  Well. Too late for that now.

  The phone.

  I didn’t really have a plan, just an idea, as I wrapped my hand around the plastic receiver of the desk phone and whipped it straight up. It caught the woman’s chin, hard, and she grunted in pain and surprise as she stumbled away from me. Her hands went to her lips and I had a quick glimpse of red staining her fingers—blood—before I was running for the front door.

  Something exploded in the room behind me. A split second later a chunk of the frame around the front doors blew apart into splinters, just inches from my face. A bullet zipped off in a ricochet and I knew I couldn’t stop. If I did, I’d be just one more ghost in the Pine Lake Inn.

  Out the front door I flew, hooking an immediate right turn. That took me past the windows in the common room, and when I looked inside I saw Denice Aldrich, gun in hand, running for the front door to come find me. I didn’t have much time.

  I’ve lived most of my life without making an enemy of anyone. Now, just in this last year, I’ve had two people try to kill me. I’m either doing something wrong, or something very right. Guess it all depends on your point of view.

  Around the next corner of the Inn I ran, reaching for my cell phone, realizing too late that I’d left it back at the registration desk. Fantastic. I hope my Kevin comes to find me soon—

  Another gunshot, and a window next to me shattered. Probably the one I just had George fix. That’s my luck.

  Some reflex made me throw my arms up over my head, protecting myself from the shards, and I really wished that I was wearing more than a t-shirt. Then I realized how stupid that was, because even if I got cut up by some flying glass a longer shirt wouldn’t save me from a bullet.

  The wind whipped at my hair as I ran headlong around the building. My heartbeat rushed in my ears and I felt queasy, like my stomach was going to turn itself inside out and spill whatever I had eaten last all over the ground.

  The last time something like this happened to me—and yes, this isn’t my first time—I got away on my trusty bicycle. There was no way I’d have time for that now. Denice would be very close. All I could do was keep running, past the storage shed where my bicycle was parked, beyond the back of the Inn, down toward the thin shelter of the few trees by the lake.

  I heard the next two shots even though I didn’t see where they hit. My guests were safe in their rooms, I hoped, but they had to be hearing all of this too. I prayed to God that none of them would come out to try and help me. I didn’t know why Denice was suddenly trying to kill me, but I didn’t want anyone else getting in her way.

  Just wish I knew where I was going.

  I stopped behind the next Monterey pine tree I came to. The trunk was thick, but still too scrawny and twisted for me to hide behind completely. I turned sideways, holding my breath, trying to scrunch myself up as small as I could. All I had to do was wait for Kevin, I told myself. I just have to wait for Kevin.

  Then I realized which tree I was hiding behind. It was the same one Lachlan had been buried under, all those years ago.

  A breath of air flowed over my cheek.

  Trembling, afraid to move, I turned only my eyes, following the source of that breath.

  Lachlan smiled at me, his eyes blazing.

  As I watched, his face shifted and melted and reformed...into mine.

  The rest of him became me as well. He mimicked my clothes, my hair, everything. Except the eyes. The eyes stayed that same dark firestorm.

  Then he turned and ran away from my hiding spot.

  Watching myself run away through the woods was the freakiest moment in my life to that point, bar none. My legs, my body, my auburn hair streaming out behind me as I fled for my life. It was unreal.

  Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?

  Lachlan—as me—turned and looked up the slope toward the Inn, hands in the air, face terrified. He stayed that way for a handful of seconds, then bolted to run again. As he did, two bullets tore through him—through me—trailing wisps of smoky essence out the other side instead of blood.

  I screamed. It tore from my throat and there was no stopping it. The sight of... me... being shot...

  I watched myself fall to the ground, crumpled and dead.

  My face turned to me, one eye closing in a wink, before my dead body dissolved into mist and floated away.

  Darkness swam at the edges of my vision, and I knew I was close to passing out. The pine tree held me up. Lachlan’s tree. That was the only thing that kept me from falling over. I have no idea how long I stood there like that, waiting. Was I safe? Had Lachlan’s trick saved me?

  A cold pressure against the side of my neck brought my head whipping back around. Denice was there, holding her gun pressed tight against my skin. No, I wasn’t safe. I’d just watched myself die, and now I was going to die for real.

  “Nice trick,” she said to me, her mouth twisted up into that little smirk she wore so easily. “Not sure how you did that. Being over
there, and all that. A projector of some kind? Hm? Well. Doesn’t matter now.”

  She cocked the hammer back on the slim automatic.

  “You know, I tried to fly in under your radar, Miss Powers. They warned me ‘bout you. Said you were trouble. Said you was smart. Too smart, is actually what they said. I figured if I kept cool you’d never notice me. Just one more guest in your Inn. Except, somehow, you started asking questions about me and now my name is being run through some very nasty databases. More than that, you’ve been asking about things that’re none of your concern. Can’t have that. I have something to do here in your flyspeck of a town, so I need you to be dead, Miss Powers. Your son, too. Please don’t take it personally.”

  “How am I supposed to take it?” I asked her bitterly.

  She shrugged. “Frankly I don’t care. Oh, and by the way, Joseph Catalaggi says hello.”

  Catalaggi. Patriarch of the ‘Ndrangheta crime family.

  The last thing he’d said to me, the one and only time we spoke, was that he’d be in touch. Guess this was his way of keeping his promise.

  With her free hand, still pointing the automatic at me, Denice worked the leather cord off her wrist. In a flash, I realized what it was. A garrote. No wonder it had looked so out of place before. Most people didn’t wear deadly weapons as fashion accessories.

  She meant to choke me to death, maybe even claim I killed myself, I don’t know. Still, I’m betting if I fight her too much on the whole death-by-strangulation thing, she’ll be more than willing to put a bullet in me.

  “Shall we do this right?” she asked, dangling the cord.

  Behind her, something moved.

  My son, my Kevin, swinging a collapsible metal baton as hard as he could.

  I’m pretty sure it snapped Denice’s wrist when it hit. The gun dropped from her hand and she turned on him, but not quick enough. He was already swinging again. This time, the baton hit across the front of her shoulder. I heard something go snap, and the woman collapsed, howling in pain.

  Kevin caught her as she fell, sort of, although she still dropped hard on her face. I really didn’t have a problem with that.

  As he was putting handcuffs on her, binding her hands behind her back, I could finally catch my breath. “Kevin, I...”

  “I’m here now, Mom. It’s all right.”

  “Bull dust it is! What is going on here?”

  One knee in Denice’s back, ignoring her muffled complaints of pain, Kevin smiled up at me. “Mom, meet Denice Aldrich, AKA Danetha Alexis. Hitman for the ‘Ndrangheta crime family.”

  His smile tightened as he looked back down at the woman with the raven pin. “Or... should I say hitwoman.”

  Chapter Nine

  You’ve heard of the Mafia.

  The ‘Ndrangheta are worse.

  They’re based in Italy, of course, but they’ve got a noticeable foothold in my country. Australia first became aware of them back in the 1960s, after a string of killings in Victoria were linked to Italian crime families. Lots of Italian immigrants in Australia, all the way back to the years before World War II when Italian civilians were put in internment camps as enemy aliens. Same thing that America did to the Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Don’t know if that helped create the ‘Ndrangheta problem here in Australia or not.

  Drug trafficking. Extortion. Money laundering. Theft. Corporate espionage. The ‘Ndrangheta are so profitable that they actually make up a noticeable part of Italy’s gross national product.

  See, I know all this because after last year I did a bit of research on my own. Well. A lot of research, actually. You do that when a group like this tells you they’ll be keeping in touch.

  So why, you might ask, would such a widespread criminal organization have any interest in a small town Inn keeper like Dell Powers? That’s a long story, but the short version is that I sort of broke up a drug ring of theirs. They sent a hitman after me, and Kevin arrested him before he could kill me. Sort of put me on their radar. Kevin, too.

  Kevin has a habit of saving my life. Now he’s thinking of leaving...

  Anyway. Got a phone call once from a smooth character calling himself Joseph Catalaggi. Said he was a family patriarch of the ‘Ndrangheta. Then he told me they were aware of me, and they’d be in touch.

  Guess this was their idea of a singing telegram.

  Not that Denice, or Danetha Alexis I suppose, was singing. She wasn’t saying anything at all.

  Bruce Kay, on the other hand, wouldn’t shut his gob.

  “This is what bloody well happens,” he was yelling at Kevin, stalking back and forth in the front room of the police station. He slammed his hand down on the dispatch desk more than once. “Yer a menace, ya know that Kev? A bloody menace. I’m jack of the great and mighty Kevin Powers, tell ya that. Running around with this hare-brained superhero complex. Why don’t ya just listen to me and stop messing about!”

  Kevin was leaning up against the filing cabinets, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes followed every step Bruce Kay made. His voice held an edge to it that Kay was too dense to pick up on. “She was gonna kill my mom, Bruce. Maybe you wanted me to just sit here on me backside and let that happen?”

  “Don’t change the subject!”

  I was sitting on the old green couch with all the duct tape on it, across the room from Kevin and Bruce, and it was a good thing I was. If I’d been any closer, I think I probably would’ve slapped Bruce into next week.

  Might just have to anyways. He keeps getting real close to me when he’s pacing like that. He wants to say just one more time that this is my Kevin’s fault. Just once more, and I’ll drive my knee so far up his groin that his grandkids will feel it.

  Well. Something like that.

  Kevin looked over at me just then. He knows I’m upset, and he knows why. Kevin has had a few blokes try to take a piece out of him. There was a bar fight down to the Thirsty Roo once that took a piece of flesh out of his shoulder. Put him in hospital for a week, too. Then the business last year. He might be used to staring down that sort of thing, but I’m not. I was on edge for weeks last year trying to get past the nightmares and the worrying that with every step I took I could hear somebody coming after me.

  How long would it take now, I wondered?

  My son tried to give me an encouraging look, but Bruce stepped between us and stopped so that he could yell at Kevin some more.

  “What d’ya think this is, Kev? Bush week?”

  He sounds so much like Angus Cutter. Might as well be talking to the Senior Sergeant. Or a brick wall. Both men have the same intellectual capacity as a rock.

  Of course, I truly believe Cutter was mixed up with the criminal activity his department is supposed to be investigating and stopping. I don’t know if Bruce Kay is, but if Cutter trusts him to watch the department when he’s out of town, then it’s a safe bet that Bruce here is just as dirty.

  “Bruce,” Kevin tried again, “that woman in our holding room is a hired killer for the ‘Ndrangheta crime family. These are the people who have brought the drug trade and murder to Lakeshore. Remember? These are the people who tried to kill my mom, and probably would’ve tried to kill me next, and God alone knows where they woulda stopped. Maybe, Bruce, they mean to kill every blessed police officer in this town just for good measure.”

  He leaned in closer to Bruce, quirking an eyebrow. “That’d be you too, wouldn’t it?”

  I had the pleasure of seeing all of the blood drain out of Bruce’s face. White as a ghost he was, pun intended. His mouth worked for a few long seconds before he made any sound at all come out of it.

  “Uh, uh, uh.” He swallowed, getting himself back together. Sort of. “I need to... uh... I need to go call Cutter. Right. Need to tell him... I need to call Cutter.”

  With that he zipped out the front door of the building faster than a bilby scurrying into its burrow. Guess he was going to call Cutter on his mobile instead of the department phones. Made me wonder why.


  “Sorry, Mom,” Kevin said to me, pushing off from the filing cabinets to come sit next to me on the couch.

  “You saved my life out there,” I said to him. “Again, I might add. What’re you apologizing for?”

  “Because I know ya wanted to beat Bruce with the nearest heavy object. I’m just sorry I couldn’t let ya do it.”

  I sighed and laid my head down on his shoulder. “He’ll get his. So will Cutter. You still thinking of quitting?”

  He took his time answering. “I applied to the Federal Police a while ago, Mom.”

  “I know.”

  “Always planned on leaving town one day.”

  “I know,” I say again, because it’s all I can say.

  “Well, when that day comes, it’d be a mite easier if I knew my mother didn’t hate me for it.”

  Sitting back up, I looked up into his eyes. He was serious. “Oh, Kevin. No. I would never hate you for going off to find your own dream. You’re too good for this place. We both know it. I just... I’ll miss you when you’re gone. That’s all.”

  He hugged me close. “I think you’re gonna get along fine without me.”

  “Oh, really. Who broke that woman’s shoulder, me or you?”

  He chuckled, and I almost felt him relax. “Her shoulder’s just bruised. Didn’t break it. Her wrist’s busted for sure, though. Still think ya woulda had it all in hand by yourself. I heard the shots when I got there. Had a few people in the Inn run out to tell me where ya were. Danetha Alexis is a professional killer, Mom. But here you sit, amazingly bullet free.”

  “She, uh, missed.”

  “Sure. Missed. Not sure how, but somehow ya always make it through. I’m proud of ya, Mom. Always have been.”

  I hugged him again, then stood up. “Maybe I had an angel watching over me,” I offered. Although I doubt Lachlan Halliburton could ever be mistaken for an angel. “So what is our friend in there saying? She give anything up?”

  Kevin shook his head. “No. Afraid not. She’s tight lipped. Asked for some high-priced attorney out of Sydney. Figures.”

  “Should we... should we be worried?” I found myself rubbing my hands up and down my arms. The ‘Ndrangheta had made two attempts on my life now. It didn’t exactly make a girl feel safe.