“Thanks. Can’t believe you’re still standing.”
“Frankly, neither can I. Let’s all keep our heads down and hope Max’s bucket-kicking distracts the family for a few days.”
After dinner, I sat on my bed and stared at the landline. How long had it been since I’d talked to Hunter, not to mention my best friend and fellow donut enthusiast Mikki Flaherty? Did they wonder what was going on?
Hunter’s curiosity, if he had any, would be strictly idle. Mikki, on the other hand, would either be sick with worry or trying speed-dating for the umpteenth time.
I picked up the phone and pressed the buttons.
All I got was her voice mail. Clearing my throat, I got ready for the beep—then hesitated.
There was no way to explain why I was one of three fugitives on the run from a family that made the Brady Bunch look like the Borgias. Not in a way that would make any sense.
The beep sounded.
“Hey, Mikki.” I tried to sound perky, like Katie Couric or Kathy Gifford. “Just checking in. Things have been a little crazy around here lately; but when I get back let’s get together for a whole box of you-know-whats. ‘Bye.”
I put the phone down. If I get back, I thought.
Chapter 15
Next morning, at breakfast, I told the boys about Gallagher’s call.
“Max Boudreaux’s dead.”
Stuart smiled. “I’m devastated.”
I stirred my coffee. “Gallagher’s not so sure about going on the offensive. Thinks the family’s nearly invincible.”
“Then how’d he get away?” Stephen asked.
“Wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, he’ll think about the idea. Wants us to keep our heads down.”
“Whatever that means,” Stuart said.
My phone rang. Dependable Dan.
“Your glass is in. Or it will be if you get your rear end down here.”
“Finally,” I said.
“Hey, I warned you it would take time.”
“I’ll bet you’ve won the Angie’s List award for customer satisfaction three years in a row.”
“Nope. And I couldn’t care less.”
“We’ll be there in half an hour. Until then, you might look up ‘How to give a rip’ on wikihow.com.”
I hung up. Stephen pulled a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and started digging between his teeth.
“Who was that?”
“Not Midas or Safelite, that’s for sure.” I paused. “Time to say goodbye to Huckleberry Acres.”
“I was just starting to like it here,” Stephen said.
Stuart giggled. “Two pieces of good news in one morning. Maybe there’s a God after all.”
There was no formal farewell. We turned in our keys at the front desk. “Come back and see us,” the older sister said. It was pretty clear she didn’t mean it.
Just as we got in the car, a white van pulled up. HUMANE SOCIETY INVESTIGATIONS, it said on the side.
“Uh-oh,” Stuart said. “Let’s not tarry unnecessarily.”
“Wish I could hear that conversation,” I said, but headed toward the highway.
Dependable Dan took 45 minutes to install the new windshield. For a guy with one eye, he did a pretty good job. After sealing the glass with blue masking tape, he joined us in the waiting room. “Don’t take the tape off for twenty-four hours,” he ordered.
He presented me with the bill. One of the charges looked unfamiliar. Something about an environmental service fee.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Have to dispose of the glue properly. Hazardous waste.”
“Which costs fifty dollars? What do you do, launch it into space?”
“Well, I could take the new window off if you like. Bet you can find another one down the road in a week or so.”
Jaw clenched, I handed over my credit card. “Stephen, Stuart—next one’s on you.”
“Pleasure doing business,” Dan said.
“That makes one of us.”
There was a faint scent of Super Glue as we left Dan behind. Considering how much we’d paid, it seemed we should notice a more striking improvement. Like a quieter ride or more dramatic scenery.
Stephen started singing. “On the road again; just can’t wait to get on the road again . . .”
“That’s a miserable Willie Nelson,” I said.
“It was Waylon Jennings.”
“Whatever. Where do you guys think we should go next?”
“New Orleans,” Stephen said.
Stuart leaned forward. “I still think getting out of the country would be best. I say Mexico.”
“New Orleans would be like deliberately walking into the woods at midnight in a slasher movie. Stupid. Nothing personal.”
He looked out his window. “You never like my ideas.”
“Mexico would be worse. And Europe would be too expensive.”
Stuart sat back. “I suppose you have the answer.”
“I vote for trying to stay with Marvin Ainsley Pitts in Florida.”
Stephen groaned.
“The guy who wrote Darkness at Dawn?” Stuart asked. “Isn’t he, like, a hundred years old?”
“I know he’s your friend, Carolyn,” Stephen said. “But—”
“The Boudreaux family won’t make a connection. And Marvin might know how to survive long enough for Gallagher to work something out.”
I waited for the protests.
Sullen silence.
There being no objections, I pulled onto the shoulder, picked up my phone, and called Brother Pitts.
“Cranberry!”
That was what Marvin had called me for as long as I could remember. I was never sure why.
“Marvin,” I asked, “are you sitting down?”
“Nope. Should I be?”
“Yes.”
There were some rustling noises. “Okay.”
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip . . .”
“Gilligan’s Island,” he said. “Where are you, Hawaii?”
“I wish. Can’t tell you our location, though. Somebody might be listening.”
“You’re in trouble again.”
“Not just me.”
I proceeded to fill him in, starting with miniature golf and ending with the windshield. I left out the part about the hot dogs.
There was a long pause. “Murder, Amish people, and the FBI. Loan sharks after you with guns. A dead mobster. And an author with a gambling problem who writes books for kids.”
“That about covers it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Very funny.”
“I’m well aware of the Boudreauxs. Hadn’t heard about Max’s demise, though.”
“We can’t just go home and hang Stuart out to dry.”
He grunted. “You need a place to stay, is that it?”
“They’d never guess if it were your place.”
“Just a minute.”
He put his phone down. I could hear him talking it over with Tracy, his long-suffering wife. She sounded alarmed.
More conversation, mostly unintelligible. Then a pause.
“Here’s my lovely bride,” Marvin said. Fumbling noises.
“Carolyn?”
“So nice to hear your voice,” I said, wondering whether I was finally stretching our friendship to the limit.
“You’ll have to sleep on the floor in Marvin’s office. And it can’t be more than three weeks, because the kids are coming to visit.”
“That should be more than enough.”
Marvin broke in. “May I remind everyone that I have a gun?”
Tracy scoffed. “Won’t do much good against the mafia or whoever this is.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Only if you promise to take me to Israel when this is over.”
“You’ve always been braver than I am,” he said, trying to sound Marvin-Gaye seductive.
“And crazier, for not turning you down whe
n you come up with stupid ideas like this.” She paused. “Sorry, Carolyn.”
“You’re right, as usual,” I said. “It’s nuts.”
“But nobody else has a better one. I know. We’ve been down this road before. The Lord’s protected us so far, but there’s no point in trying His patience.”
I put my phone on speaker and looked at Stephen and Stuart. “Everybody say ‘thank you.’”
“For what?” Stephen whispered.
“Just do it.”
“Gracias,” Stuart said.
“Vielen Dank,” added Stephen. “Or Danke Schoen, if you’re a Wayne Newton fan.”
“Who?” Stuart asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Thanks, and we’ll see you in a couple of days.”
I hung up, started the car, took the next exit, and set a course for St. Petersburg—hoping I wasn’t taking down Marvin and Tracy along with us.
Two days on the back roads were like ten on the front roads. We watched all the way for Jeremy and the Nameless Girl. The closer we got to Florida the more big, white Cadillacs we saw, driven by old people with their turn signals stuck.
Every six hours I tried to call Gallagher, except during the night. Couldn’t reach him.
In Mars Bluff, South Carolina, we stopped at the Economy Inn. Stuart paid with a Visa, grumbling. “Hope the Boudreauxs don’t have relatives at the credit card companies to track our purchases. And that I don’t run out of money before this is over.”
Next day, five miles from St. Petersburg, we came over a hill just in time to see a picture-perfect sunset. Marvin was always needling me about staying in the Big Apple, where sunsets were blocked by the buildings and nobody noticed anyway because they were all staring at their smartphones while crossing the street and getting hit by the taxi drivers.
I put on my sunglasses and turned down the visor. “Almost there,” I said.
“I’d move here,” said Stuart, “if I could afford plastic surgery and a fake I.D.” He sighed.
When we got to the Pitts condo, Marvin answered the door.
“You can park in the carport. Got a tarp we can pull over your car.”
Tracy found sleeping bags and set us up in Marvin’s office. I could see fitting us all in would require more spatial intelligence than I had. Maybe Stuart’s artistic eye could envision a solution. If not, Stephen could find an app for it.
Tracy started dinner and invited me into the kitchen.
“Reminds me of the Amish,” I said. “The womenfolk deal with the food. The men just eat it.”
“Give me a hand with the clam chowder. We usually have New England, but for you we’ll try Manhattan.”
I opened four cans of clams. She chopped the onions.
“Tell me more about the Amish,” she said.
I did, trying not to brag about how proficient I’d gotten as a milkmaid and manure shoveler.
When I got to the part about Aaron and how he’d helped us escape, she put down her knife. “Want to see him again?” she asked.
“Oh, whatever,” I lied.
Fifteen minutes later she tapped Marvin on the shoulder. “Dinner’s ready.”
Marvin stood. “Everybody to the table.” We sat down. “Stuart,” he said, “would you care to return thanks?”
Stuart blanched. But as my mother used to say, he knew which side his bread was buttered on.
“Salt is bitter, sugar is sweet. Thanks for the vittles; good God, let’s eat.”
When I opened my eyes, Marvin and Tracy were looking away, apparently trying not to lecture Stuart on his theology or laugh at his poetry.
“My grandma taught me that,” Stuart said.
I patted his arm, knowing he’d rather be tied to the railroad tracks than pray.
Stephen was first to dig in, taking enough oyster crackers for a wading pool full of chowder.
Marvin turned to his wife. “Manhattan, is it?”
“That’s right.”
He nodded. “As it should be.”
He turned to me and pointed at his service revolver on the buffet.
“I believe I mentioned my friend there.”
“You did.”
“Just in case,” he whispered, and passed what was left of the crackers.
Chapter 16
After dinner we sat on the couches. The Pitts had two of them, at right angles—one tan, one the color of Marvin’s hair. Which was slightly more gray than white.
“Let’s strategize,” I said.
“I love that,” Stephen said. “But we usually do it with an erasable white board.”
“Well, excuse me,” Tracy said. “It’s a living room, not an office.”
Marvin leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “Here’s what I know about the Boudreauxs. Especially Angel. Probably more ruthless than her father. Legend has it she once used a tin snips on a debtor’s knuckle bones.”
Stuart flinched.
“Stop!” Tracy cried, throwing a pillow at her not-so-lovely groom.
“Honey, please don’t do that.”
She shrugged. “Baby, it’s a throw pillow. And this poor man doesn’t need you scaring him half to death.”
I leaned forward. “Here’s what I don’t get. If the family’s done all these things, why hasn’t the FBI or whoever put them in prison?”
Marvin scratched his pointy chin. “It’s like Al Capone.”
“What?”
“They couldn’t prove he was a mass murderer. Finally, got him on tax evasion. Maybe they could do something like that with the Boudreauxs, but the IRS seems to have better things to—”
My phone rang.
“Where are you?” It was Gallagher.
“We’re—” I hesitated. “Call me back on the landline.” I gave him the number and hung up.
Stephen lifted an eyebrow. “Gallagher?”
I nodded and moved to the other sofa, next to the lamp stand where the telephone sat. Stuart looked at his watch.
Riiiiiinnngg.
“Me again,” said the gravelly voice. I put the phone on speaker.
“Have you ever heard of Marvin Ainsley Pitts?”
There was a pause. “Darkness at Dawn? Yeah, sure.” Marvin beamed.
“We’re at his place in St. Petersburg. With him and his wife.”
“How’d you pull that off? I’ve followed the guy for years. Wish I could write like him, but I’m sort of dyslexic.”
“He’s one of a kind,” I said. Marvin’s grin grew wider. Tracy rolled her eyes.
“But aren’t you putting them in a bad spot? You’ve got no protection.”
Marvin waved it off. “I have a gun,” he called.
“With all due respect, sir, you’re outnumbered.”
Marvin chuckled. “Did I mention my battalion of angels?”
Gallagher grunted. “Not my department.”
Marvin winked at me.
“I’m working on finding an informant close to the family,” Gallagher said. “It’s not easy. The last person who infiltrated the Boudreaux mansion was a partner of mine. He ended up floating in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Tracy looked at Marvin.
“Sugar, I got this,” he said.
“Where have I heard that before?”
Gallagher cleared his throat. “Next time I’ll call this number. Hope you’ll be alive to answer.”
Next morning, Marvin and I took an early walk on the beach. It was chilly, but the sun was just starting to clear the horizon.
“Cranberry, how you doing?”
I kicked away a piece of seaweed half-buried in the sand. “Well as can be expected.”
“That’s no kind of answer.”
I pulled Tracy’s borrowed sweater more tightly around my shoulders. “I just want to turn back the clock to the day we went miniature golfing. I’d take Stuart to the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead. After a nice afternoon of staring at Rembrandts, we’d put him on a plane back to Vermont. He might be dead by now, but at least
we’d be free of the Boudreauxs.”
Marvin bent down, picked up a rock with sea-bored holes in it, and tossed it away. “Makes a lot of sense, except for the time-travel part.”
We resumed hiking in silence.
Marvin chose another rock and flung it into the surf. “Life’s not fair, but God is good. You’ve done the right thing by trying to help Stuart.”
A voice broke in behind us. “Samson!”
Marvin pulled up his sweatshirt, slipped out his revolver, and whirled around.
It was just a big dog, black, at least half Irish Wolfhound, galloping down the beach. Its little-old-lady owner, pressing her white cloche hat to her head with one hand, tried in vain to keep up.
Marvin put back the gun. Seemed an uncomfortable place to keep it, but he didn’t have a purse.
“If God is so good and powerful,” I said, “why carry that thing?”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Don’t tell anybody, but I never put a bullet in it. Except at the shooting range.”
He looked at the ocean. The sun was higher now.
“My faith ain’t in Smith and Wesson.”
We watched the dog and its owner get smaller and smaller, saying nothing.
Finally, he spoke. “Powerful, yeah. But don’t forget the good part.”
Back at the condo, I helped Tracy get breakfast ready. She manhandled a heavy old waffle iron from a low kitchen cabinet and took out a steel bowl.
“My mom had one of those,” I said. “Probably still does.”
“Reach me the flour, would you?” she asked, and pointed to the pantry. “And the vegetable oil.”
She plugged the iron into the wall. “When’s the last time you had a homemade waffle?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Well, you’re about to have a good one. Marvin sticks around mostly to get them. Lord only knows why I keep making them.”
Stephen and Stuart wandered in, their hair uncombed.
“You boys get me the maple syrup.”
“Where?” Stephen asked.
“I’m not tellin.’ You need something to do.”
Stephen opened and closed every cabinet in the room, then shook his head. “I give up.”
Murder Most Unlucky: A Cozy Mystery (A Carolyn Neville Mystery Book 5) Page 10