Thirty-Six and a Half Motives: Rose Gardner Mystery #9 (Rose Gardner Mystery Series)

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Merv sent me text. Go.”

  I stumbled into the room, bumping into a table, and turned to shut and lock the door behind me. “What’s to keep them from picking the lock?” I whispered, pulling the gun out of my pocket.

  “Nothing. They could also shoot the lock, but I doubt they’ll do either. They’ll never expect you to be hiding in there, especially if they’re hiding out in Kate’s apartment. You just sit tight and wait them out.”

  “Is Merv okay?” I made my way along the edge of the table. It felt like it was made with 4x4s.

  “He’s been better, but you let me deal with Merv. You concentrate on what’s going on around you. Do you hear anything?”

  “No.”

  “Stay on your toes. I expect them to be quiet. They’re hidin’ from Henryetta’s finest. They may think to hide in your shed, too.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “What’s in there with you?”

  “Uh . . . I didn’t see anything before I came in, but I bumped into a large table. About four feet long, I think. I figure I shouldn’t turn on my flashlight in case they’re close enough to see light at the bottom of the door.”

  “Good thinking. But use the light of your phone screen. It should be dim enough to keep you hidden. Look for someplace to hide in case they decide to join you in there.”

  I dug out my phone. The illuminated screen revealed a table constructed out of plywood and rough lumber, covered in stacks of papers. There was also a bottom ledge stacked with large cardboard boxes.

  “I think I may have found a good spot,” I said, moving around to the back of the table. I shifted two heavy boxes onto the floor. The table was wide enough that I could hide in the middle of the boxes and go undetected—unless they started searching. But it seemed like my best chance. “I found a place that should work unless they go snoopin’.”

  “Have your gun drawn just in case this all goes south,” he said, his voice even and cool.

  “Already done,” I said as I moved the boxes back into place next to me. And I finished in the nick of time.

  Seconds later, I heard low voices outside the shed, followed by the click of metal in the lock and the sound of the door swinging open. They were either experts at lock picking, or they had a key. Considering the familiar way they rushed into the room and shut the door behind them—neither of them hitting the table—I was going with the latter. Someone turned on a dim light, and I could hear their soft footsteps, pacing back and forth next to the table.

  I struggled to keep my breath slow and steady. The last thing I needed was for them to hear me hyperventilating.

  “Rose?” Skeeter whispered in my ear, reminding me that my phone was still in my hand. The screen was locked, but I turned it over just in case. I didn’t dare tell Skeeter what was going on. He’d figure it out soon enough.

  “Do you think he saw us?” one of them asked. He sounded like his vocal cords were made of sandpaper. I heard something metal clang on the table. He moved again, and I realized that he was the one wearing dark jeans.

  “Nah,” Sam Teagen said, his khaki-covered legs staying in place. “He was too distracted. Why do you think Malcolm has a guy at her office?”

  “The bigger question is why did he help her take down Simmons? That’s what she wants to find out.”

  “She ain’t payin’ us enough to deal with this shit,” Teagen said. “I’ve already taken more chances than I would have liked.”

  “You’ve got that damn straight.”

  They were silent for a moment, then the sandpaper-voiced guy said, “I don’t plan on spending all night in this shack.”

  “It’s not like we have other options.”

  “Hell, yeah, we do. We could climb down to the fire escape and hang out in the apartment below us.”

  “She won’t like that,” Teagen growled.

  “She’s not the one dodging police and sheriff’s deputies on the whims of a psychopath. We’ll tell her we didn’t have a choice.”

  “She’ll want to know why we didn’t hide out here in the shed.”

  I heard some more clinking of metal and plastic and realized they were reloading their guns.

  “Tell her the police followed us up here. Hell, maybe we should burn the shed down.”

  My breath caught, and I could feel the tension radiating from the other side of the phone line.

  “I suspect there’s only one way out,” Skeeter whispered.

  The answer was obvious, not that I could respond.

  “We ain’t burnin’ shit, idiot,” Teagen said, and it sounded like he whacked the other guy in the back of the head. “Why would we want to call more attention to the fact that we’re here in this block of buildings? Not to mention the ammo would explode.” He paused. “Maybe we should head down to the apartment, though.”

  “No, listen. They’re getting too close. We need to torch anything that even hints we’re part of this.”

  “Huh . . .” Teagen murmured. “You might be right.”

  “Rose, you listen to me,” Skeeter said. His voice rumbled in my head.

  The other guy groaned. “She’s not gonna be happy that we didn’t get Rose Gardner. And Simmons is likely to kill us. We need to destroy everything linking us to her. Then it’s her word against ours.”

  Skeeter continued with his instructions, adding, “You be prepared to shoot them.”

  My hand squeezed the handle of my gun.

  “Yeah,” Teagen said. “But where could Rose be? She couldn’t have gone out the front . . .” He cursed. “I bet she was hiding in the apartment on the second floor of her building.”

  “But the door to the roof was unlocked.”

  “She probably did that to trick us. Dammit. We have to go back. If she hasn’t gotten away already.”

  “What about burning the shack?”

  “Let’s wait until we check out that apartment. Then we’ll torch it and hang out downstairs until we can escape in all the confusion.

  The door opened and they both left, grumbling about what a pain in the ass I was.

  “Are they gone?” Skeeter asked.

  “Yeah.” I pushed out a big breath and leaned forward, my heart beating so hard it hurt.

  “Give them thirty seconds. Then crack the door. Watch them until they disappear back into your building.”

  “Then what?” I crawled out from under the table, thankful I could see what I was doing since they hadn’t bothered to turn off the light. “I’m stuck on this roof.”

  “No, you can use the same fire escape they’re planning to use, but you’ll have to hurry.”

  When I cracked open the door, they were only halfway across the rooftops. I turned my attention to the interior of the room. The walls were lined with guns, but that didn’t catch me off guard nearly as much as what was laying on top of the table.

  I gasped.

  “What?” Skeeter asked.

  “All the evidence Neely Kate and I found in Kate Simmons’s apartment was moved here.” I flipped through a stack of documents and found Mason’s case files.

  “So?”

  “So?” I asked in disbelief. “This proves Kate’s involved.”

  “We’ve got Teagen and dipshit to prove that. You need to get the hell out of there before they come back.”

  I started rifling through the files and opened a folder at random. I was surprised to see a photo of an older African-American woman clipped to one side of the folder. A paper clipped to the other side read Roberta Miller. What did that have to do with Mason? As I looked over the paper, which listed her information in bullet points, I recognized the El Dorado, Arkansas, address of one of her previous employers. This woman didn’t have anything to do with Mason.

  This was a file on Joe’s childhood housekeeper.

  Chapter 10

  “What are you doin’, Rose?” Skeeter’s voice pierced my ear.

  “I’m looking in a file.” The El Dorado address was the home of Joe’s parents. Roberta h
ad been Joe’s housekeeper when he was a kid. He’d loved her like a grandmother, and it had devastated him when she’d up and left.

  “You don’t have time to look in a file. Get the hell out of there!”

  I noticed a brown duffel bag on the floor, and without thinking, I grabbed the handles and dumped the heavy contents onto the floor. Guns and ammo spilled into the corner. I only hoped Teagen and his friend would be in too big of a hurry to burn the place to notice, but then I realized that what I was about to do would be more noticeable.

  “There are a whole lot of guns in here, Skeeter,” I said, stuffing Roberta’s file into the bag, along with as many other files as I could grab.

  “We heard that Gentry was moving guns into town, but we never could figure out where he was hiding them. No one would ever think to look there. How many do you see?”

  “I just dumped ten or so out on the floor, but they’re hanging on all the walls. I see at least fifty out in the open. And then all the boxes.”

  “Gentry,” he confirmed. “Now get the hell out of there.”

  I crammed the last file into the bag, then struggled to zip it shut. When I picked it up, I groaned at the weight of it. How was I going to get it down the fire escape?

  “Rose!”

  I looped the strap over my shoulder. “I’m goin’.” I ran over to the back edge of the building, but the hopelessness of my situation washed over me when I saw the distance between the roof and the fire escape platform. “I can’t do it,” I said. “It’s too far.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe eight feet.”

  “Shit.” He paused. “You have to jump.”

  “Skeeter!”

  “The way I see it, you have three choices. One, you stay there and get captured. Two, you hide in the shed and then shoot them when they open the door. Or three, you jump. Now which do you pick?”

  “It’s gonna make noise when I land on the metal grate, Skeeter. There are police officers milling around the alley. They’re sure to notice.”

  “Give me thirty seconds, and there’ll be a distraction. When you see it, jump.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll know when you see it. They should all clear out so you can lower the ladder and get to the street.”

  “It’s already down.” Further confirmation that they’d holed up in Kate’s apartment. “Then what?”

  “Head north on Lincoln and then go into the Greasy Spoon diner. Wait for me at a booth in the back.”

  I looked down at the fire escape again, shaking with fear. The landing was narrow. What if I missed?

  He grunted, then his voice lowered. “I have to go, but wait for me there and try to keep a low profile.”

  “Skeeter!” I shouted, but he’d already hung up, leaving me terrified and alone. I hadn’t realized how reassuring he’d been—even if it was just a voice in my ear—until he was gone.

  About ten seconds later, an explosion lit up the night sky over by the square, sending pieces of burning debris raining down on the street. The police in the alley ran off to investigate, and I took that as my cue.

  I dropped the bag first, aiming for the fire escape. Instead, it missed by a good three feet and landed in an open Dumpster with a loud thud. Thankfully, no one was around to notice.

  Except . . . Shoot. That didn’t bode well for my own leap.

  I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a head popping out of the trap door on my building’s roof.

  Oh, shit.

  I climbed onto the ledge, sucked in a deep breath, and then jumped, looking back just in time to see Sam Teagen staring right at me.

  The fright of getting caught overrode my fear of jumping—not that I could have changed my mind midair. I landed in a crouch, hitting my shoulder against the metal siding hard enough to hurt—taking comfort that I wasn’t in the trash bin—then scrambled up.

  I didn’t have much time to get down the ladder, around the alley, and out of sight. They were sure to see where I went.

  Which gave me another idea.

  I spun around and peered inside the dark apartment. Kate’s dark apartment. When Neely Kate and I had broken into this very apartment last week, the fire escape had been our escape route. I was betting my life on a huge gamble, but if I pulled it off, I’d likely save my hide.

  But first I had to get the window open. The window connected to the fire escape had been stuck last time, so I saw no reason to waste precious moments on it now. The next window over—the escape route I’d used with Neely Kate—was slightly open, hinting that Teagen and his friend had come that way, too. I leaned over the railing, slid my fingers under the one-inch crack at the bottom of the window, and jerked upward. The window slid up, but only by a foot.

  Crap on a cracker.

  I climbed onto the railing and, holding on to it with one hand for balance, used my free hand to grab the bottom of the window frame and shove it upward with all my strength. The window slid open with a jerk, making me lose my balance on the railing. I pitched forward—my chest and upper body landed in the opening, and the lower half of my body hung out of it.

  I heard Teagen’s friend yell, “She went over the edge!”

  “Shut up, you idiot!” Teagen shouted, his voice much fainter.

  I’d already suspected Teagen was craftier than half the criminals in the county, but his friend fell into the stupid category.

  Pushing on the ledge, I pulled myself the rest of the way into the apartment and then spun around and pushed the window mostly shut, leaving the one-inch crack to throw Teagen off.

  One of them shouted something incoherent. Panicked, I scrambled backward to the makeshift bathroom area that I remembered from my first “visit” to the apartment. I climbed into the tub and hid behind the shower curtains the owner had hung to stand in for makeshift bathroom walls. One of the men landed on the fire escape with a loud thud, which was quickly followed by an explosion that shook the floor beneath me. They’d set the fire.

  There was another thud on the fire escape, followed by a groan. “Shit, I think I broke my ankle,” the sandpaper voice whined.

  “Get up, you wuss. She got away. Simmons is really gonna kill us if we don’t track her down.”

  I strained to listen, thankful they weren’t whispering.

  “If you’d just killed her last week like you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “My job was to snatch her. The others were supposed to kill her. I did my part. I left her at the cabin, then went off to kill the assistant D.A.”

  “Which you didn’t do.”

  “Shut up, Marshal. I couldn’t find him!” Teagen whined.“It’s like he vanished into thin air until they captured Simmons.”

  “That bitch wasn’t happy before. She’s already pissed she hasn’t gotten her bail money back, so imagine how ugly she’s gonna be now. We have to find that girl and quick.”

  “Then let’s go find the girl,” Teagen said. “And you better not bellyache about your foot.”

  “Ankle.”

  “Whatever. The fire’s really burning now. We need to git.”

  He was right. Smoke was wafting down through cracks in the ceiling above me.

  Their voices grew fainter as they descended the fire-escape staircase. Time to leave.

  I ran to the front window and cursed when I saw how many people were gathered out front. How would I justify leaving Kate’s apartment? The staircase to the street led only to this apartment.

  But the answer quickly presented itself in the form of the elderly couple who owned the antique store downstairs. It couldn’t be later than eight o’clock, but they were both ready for bed. Or had been when the alert went out. The husband was wearing a pair of overalls over a flannel pajama shirt along with a pair of dirty rain boots; the wife had on a nightgown over a pair of pants, and her thin gray hair was up in six or seven foam rollers. They pushed through the growing crowd, moving toward the front entrance of the store, yel
ling, “Get out of my way! We gotta save our stuff.”

  Officer Sprout tried to hold them back. “Nobody’s goin’ in there! It’s for your own safety!”

  “Let ’em go!” a man shouted. “This is America! They can go into their store if they wanna! The First Amendment says so!”

  “Wrong amendment, dumbass,” another man snarled. “That’s our right to carry guns!” He aimed a rifle in the air and let off a round. The bullet ricocheted off the brick by the window closest to me, and the crowd screamed and ducked.

  The roof over my head groaned, and smoke rolled through a growing crack.

  The rowdy crowd was now back on their feet and surging forward. Someone threw a rock, and the sound of the shattering glass window filled the air as pieces of glass fell to the sidewalk.

  Mass chaos broke out as the couple pushed past Officer Sprout. The crowd moved forward with them, rushing the store. That was my cue, which was a good thing since smoke was pouring into the apartment at an alarming rate from the ceiling, which appeared to be directly below the burning shack, burning my nose and throat. Covering my arm over the lower half of my face, I raced down the stairs.

  Blending in with the crowd would have been easier if I’d had an armful of loot. Everywhere I looked, people were carting a variety of items out of the store. Two men hefted a battered, dirty beige sofa with yellow and brown stains onto their shoulders while a woman ran out behind them carrying a lamp that was shaped like a cow and painted to indicate the various cuts of meat. An older man tried to snatch it from her, but she lifted it over her head and began to beat him over the head with the lamp shade.

  I pushed my way through the melee as a new fight broke out between two women over a bust of Justin Bieber—a fine antique if I ever saw one—and I narrowly missed getting hit in the head by a brass statuette of two dogs with clown wigs and noses, which a man had tossed out the window to his friend.

  When I reached the safety of the corner, I hesitated. I needed to get to the Greasy Spoon, but it was three blocks away. Part of me wanted to stay in the anonymity of the crowd—rowdy as they were—but the rest of me was eager to get that bag out of the Dumpster and find Skeeter. I’d gotten a lot of potentially useful information from Teagen and his friend. I just needed to figure out what to do with it.